Gartner High on Social Media & Mobile Apps

I have always spoken about and encouraged my clients and friends to use social media to propagate and enhance their brand image and recall. I have emphasized on the usage of the mobile applications to attract customers. The potential of the social media platform and it power of its ability to reach the masses around the world is immense. The ability of the mobile applications to make a positive impact on our lives is amazing (check out my previous posts: Mobile Apps for Strokes, Healthcare Apps). Hence I felt my stand is vindicated when Gartner recently mentioned “Companies Will Generate 50 Percent of Web Sales Via Their Social Presence and Mobile Applications by 2015”.

This trend will definitely continue for at least to the next decade. Today users are looking for innovative but simple ways to interact with the companies. The old way of interaction is gone as the users become more tech savvy and do not like to wait. Hence, fast, easy and advance tools to interact with the consumers will be major requirements for the companies across the globe.

Additionally, as the usage of the Smartphones increases and bypasses the traditional PC—the expectation of the consumers will be vastly different and more integrated with the social platforms and innovative mobile applications. For the content driven industries, it will be both a challenge as well an opportunity. And whichever companies makes the first plunge and brings in integrated solutions for the consumers will emerge as the winner.

Another opportunity for the companies will be to expand their reach all over the world without making any investment on physical infrastructure or manpower in every region that they want to operate.

As technology grows more advanced and its usage becomes more innovative, the demands of the net and tech savvy consumers will also be in par with it. I firmly believe that the future will be interesting! What say you?



P.S: Check out Gene Alvarez, Research Vice President at Gartner, comments on the above topic in the Gartner YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjF3hqKm93Q

Nielsen India - Content usage on high among SmartPhone users

Did you check out the recent report on Indian smartphones usage patterns by Nielsen India? Indian SmartPhone users spend more time on content than Voice and SMS!! Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights,  revealed in its most recent study of this emerging market that the average Smartphone user spends 2.5 hours a day using their phones with 72% of their time spent on activities such as gaming, entertainment, apps and internet related content. Only 28% of their time is now used for voice calls and text messaging.

Key Findings by Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights

• Smartphone users in India are using their phones for more than 2.5 hrs per day, of which communication (calls, SMS, emails) accounts for only 28% of usage
• Younger Smartphone  users (15-25 yr olds) spend more than 3 hrs per day on their phones and spend 60% of the time on entertainment & browsing e.g., gaming, surfing the net and multimedia
• 68% of 15-24 year olds used a chat app last month as compared to 42% for the 31+ year olds; and
• Data usage for 3G users was close to 44% more than 2G users
• An Android user installs an average of 19 apps in a month compared to 10 apps for a Symbian user
• 84% of Android users played a game in the last month compared to 59% for Symbian users

What are trends expected?

I firmly believe that as 3G usages becomes more rampant in India, the focus and usage on content is going to increase. In fact, the time is ripe for the content developers to introduce innovative content. The jobs for content developer are also bound to increase, as a result. Hence, I do believe in future content would become the king in the SmartPhone arena.