While it is true that many of the most advanced mobile marketing campaigns only work well on Smartphones, it is important not to be misled and conclude that these campaigns are too limited to be effective.
A recently released market forecast shows Smartphones accounting for more than half of the world’s phone market by 2015!
In comparison, in 2011 there will be about 478 million Smartphones shipped, representing just one third of the total volume. And in 2009, Smartphones were only about 16% of the total market.
Much of this growth will be due in part due to the increasing sales of low-end Smartphones that are now becoming available. Shipments of low-end smartphones are expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 115.4 percent during the period from 2010 through 2015, compared to just 16.4 percent for mid-range to high-end smart phones.
As an example, Vodafone has announced the “Smart”, an Android-based Smartphone built by Huawei that will be priced at about €90.
And then there is Samsung, which posted the strongest growth of any handset company in the market with a 600 percent sequential increase in shipments. Samsung’s industry-leading performance was driven by its line of low-end smart phones that appeal to consumers in China and Latin America.
“Samsung seeks to expand market share in the emerging market with models costing around $200, as those markets have lower smartphone penetration rates compared with advanced markets,” a Samsung group spokeswoman
“With their affordable prices, low-end smart phones are attractive to first-time users and to consumers in emerging economies where subscriber levels are rising at the fastest rates of all regions of the world, such as China, India, South Asia and Africa,” said Francis Sideco, senior principal analyst, wireless communications for IHS.
Overall, this rapid growth of Smartphones is quite amazing, and very good news for mobile marketing.
Many people still feel that mobile marketing has a limited usefulness due to the limited capabilities of early phones. As advertisers care about reach, they believe they need to cater only to very simple devices.
But this information shows that fairly soon smartphones will be the norm, and advertisers will be able to target very capable, high quality devices and still enjoy a large reach.
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