75% of Worldwide Cellphone Users Texting

Social networking most popular in Israel (53%) and the U.S. (50%)

Texting remains the universal method of communication – around the world. According to a survey of cellphone users in 21 countries, 75% replied they send text messages. The Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project study, published this week, studied the use of digital communication tools including mobile and social networks worldwide. The study found those young and well-educated are the most likely to adopt new technologies. Those under 30 who hold college degrees are most likely to use many mobile functions and social networks. And that only one-half of the respondents send photos or videos, and just 23% use the Internet.

MOBILE USAGE
Texting is most popular in Kenya and Indonesia, the two poorest nations included in the study. Sending photos or videos is most popular in Japan (72% reported the behavior), followed by Mexico (61%), Spain (59%) and Egypt (58%). Using mobile data still seems to be a behavior of wealthier countries, most popular in Israel (47%), Japan (47%) and the U.S. (43%). Complete results:

SOCIAL NETWORKS
The study also looks at the use of social networking, which corresponds with wealthy nations where Internet access is more common. Social networking is most popular in Israel (53%) and the U.S. (50%), followed by Britain (43%), Russia (43%) and Spain (42%). However, Internet users in poorer nations use social networks at equal if not higher rates than those in richer countries.

The study, conducted between March 21 and May 15, 2011 – surveyed between 700 and 4,029 mobile users per country by telephone or in person in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, China, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Mexico and Kenya.

For more information, see Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

QWASI implements Mobile & Social Strategy for business. Contact us today to learn more about Social Marketing and Mobile Marketing strategies @ 877-747-9274.

December 22, 2011 in Blog   |   No Comments

Consumers to Spend $2.1 Trillion on Digital Information and Entertainment Products and Services in 2011 Worldwide

Gartner Research firm has found that consumers are on track to spend a record $2.1 trillion on digital information and entertainment products this year. That figure is expected to hit $2.8 trillion by 2015. $1.2 trillion — 62% — is spent on subscription-based communication services such as mobile, voice, and data services, broadband packages, video services, online gaming, and cable TV subscriptions.

28% of that total $2.1 trillion or $600 billion is spent on devices themselves, and 10% is spent on content such as computer software, video on-demand, and pay-per-view services. “The three key technology areas that will offer the best opportunity for vendors during the next three years are:

1) Wireless Broadband – which will enable constant connectivity;
2) Location-based services (LBS) - which will personalize and take advantage of the constant connected state; and
3) Operating systems – which are the foundation for integration applications that can bring it all together.

The total consumer spend is expected to increase to $2.8 trillion by 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide consumer spending on digital information and entertainment products and services is projected to reach $2.1 trillion in 2011.

The trend among vendors to offer a diversified portfolio of products and/or services puts them in a better position to seize a larger share of the consumer wallet. Gartner defines consumer wallet spending as the money spent by consumers for digital technology devices and services that are for accessing, consuming and creating content. This wallet is divided into three basic spending types — content, devices and services.

“While a vendor can be a leader in specializing within just one segment of the consumer wallet, there are a mounting number of examples that suggest diversification may be the optimal path forward in the consumer electronics industry,” said Amanda Sabia, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Vendors that diversify their offerings across multiple consumer spending segments earn revenue across the full ecosystem and take legacy services to transform to newer products and services.”

“There are two basic strategies that vendors have used to capture consumer spending that will enable their interconnected consumer experience,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal research analyst at Gartner. “The first is to concentrate in one consumer spending segment, and the second is to diversify into other consumer spending segments.”

“The challenge to vendors choosing to be hyper-focused on one wallet spending segment is the relentless pursuit of innovation required to maintain segment sales leadership in this one specific segment,” Ms. Kitagawa said.

“Technology innovation opens windows of opportunity for vendors to consider diversification,” said Ms. Kitagawa. “However, technology innovation also opens a window for change among consumers to switch vendors in the pursuit of cost savings or lifestyle-changing technology.”

“The three key technology areas that will offer the best opportunity for vendors during the next three years are: wireless broadband, which will enable constant connectivity; location-based services (LBS), which will personalize and take advantage of the constant connected state; and operating systems, which are the foundation for integration applications that can bring it all together.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Market Trends: Diversification Trends Capture More of Consumer Technology Spending.” The report presents what products and services make up the consumer wallet, and a high-level analysis of the varying strategies to capture that spending within and among the various segments.

June 28, 2011 in Blog   |   No Comments

QWASI unifies Mobile Marketing, Mobile Messaging and Short Code Services

Mobile Two-Way API 2.0 from QWASI brings together SMS, MMS and Interactive Mobile Marketing.

PHILADELPHIA, March 7, 2011 – QWASI, a leading mobile marketing and communications company providing cross-market interactive solutions, announced its Mobile Messaging API 2.1 for enterprises, agencies and brand marketers. By using the QWASI Mobile Application Programming Interface, known as an API, a company can program mobile marketing services including mobile coupon delivery, mobile ticketing, mobile voting, polling, keywords, text2win, info-on-demand and more. The two-way messaging gateway utilizes either a shared shortcode or dedicated short code to power messaging via SMS (text messaging) and MMS (multi-media messaging) to users in the US.

“The time for companies to tap into the power of mobile is now. Over the last twelve months, we have seen a tremendous push by small and medium size businesses to adopt mobile marketing for their customers,” states Dave Geipel, Founder of QWASI, Inc. “With the ability to use our mobile marketing platform, a company of any size can now embrace mobile marketing for pennies a customer. We are seeing many new Fortune 1000 companies moving to dedicated short codes to support their business needs.” QWASI provides an easy short code search tool from its website.

Recent reliability and delivery issues for many companies using low-cost providers and second and third tier aggregators have mounted and have brought many new customers to QWASI. This has forced many corporate clients to find an alternative to low cost “bulk messaging” which often isn’t delivered to end users by wireless carriers. It requires a dedicated team to monitor campaigns and traffic to ensure maximum up time for their clients.

QWASI recently released several new updates to its Mobile Marketing Center Platform. The Mobile Marketing Center is a self-service portal that allows companies to create, launch and manage their campaigns with relative ease. The Mobile Marketing Center is available to customers using a their own dedicated short code and works across multiple US aggregators. Mobile Marketing services available through the two-way SMS API include:

• SMS Auto Responders: drip marketing campaigns via text messaging to opt-in users.

• Info-on-Demand: information sent to opt-in users via custom Keywords. Capture opt-in users for future message blasts including email addresses.

• SMS Alerts and Blasts: send text messages to a subscriber lists. Keep customers informed of promotions, offers & events.

• Mobile Coupons: distribute coupons to cell phones of customers who have opted-in to receive your promotions. Track promotional code usage.

• Text-to-Win: Enable potential customers to text in a special keyword to instantly enter-to-win a prize.

• Text-to-Vote: Provide a poll or vote and gain valuable feedback – in real-time.

• Web Widgets: Build a subscriber list from web-widgets.

• Custom Applications: The Marketing Center API allows companies to build any custom mobile messaging application.

With twice as many users of SMS than email globally and over 200 Billion text messages sent every month in the United States, consumer brands continue to look for new, innovative campaigns to reach today’s mobile consumer. QWASI is also bringing two-way MMS to market in the US with innovative MMS Applications to allow end users to participate with brands using picture and video messaging. With a huge shift toward social marketing, QWASI is bringing the power of mobile and social together creating new engagement. And through an easy-to-use white label mobile marketing platform, launching campaigns and monitoring performance is now possible for any client with powered by their own short code.

ABOUT QWASI

QWASI, Inc. is a leading mobile and social communications and solutions provider of interactive applications for clients around the globe utilizing Social Messaging, SMS, MMS, Mobile Web and Apps. Through its Synchrosy® methodology, QWASI creates and implements mobile strategy for business, simplifying complex problems with mobile marketing, social messaging, mobile commerce, text ordering, mobile coupons, mobile chat, and customized interactive alerting for Fortune 1000 businesses.

March 7, 2011 in Press Releases   |   No Comments

2010 Mobile Access survey shows "more people doing more things on their cell phones"

Mobile trends continue to show in 2010 that people are talking less yet doing more with their mobile phones and devices. According to the latest report from the Pew Research Center, their 2010 Mobile Access Survey shows that now 38% of users access the internet on their mobile device. However, the two mobile activities people do the most include: taking pictures on their phone (76%) and sending or receiving text messages (72%).

Other popular activities by mobile users include:
34% Play a Game
34% Send/Receive an Email
33% Play Music
30% Send/Receive IM
34% Record a Video (quickly growing)

Compared to April 2009, 76% of people take pictures with their phones, up from 66% and 72% send/receive text messages compared to 65% in 2009. Other comparisons include: over a third play games, up from about a quarter. A third of people now play music on their phones, compared to 21% in 2009, but the biggest jump is in recording video: 34% vs. 19% before. Given the number of new video-enabled phones released throughout the last year, it is expected this will grow to the heights of pictures.

Additional mobile activities are now being tracked. Among all cell phone owners:
* 54% have used their mobile device to send someone a photo or video
* 23% have accessed a social networking site using their phone
* 20% have used their phone to watch a video
* 15% have posted a photo or video online
* 11% have purchased a product using their phone
* 11% have made a charitable donation by text message
* 10% have used their mobile phone to access a status update service such as Twitter

Mobile Internet usage growing.
Nearly 89 million people in the U.S. have used the mobile internet in the past year — close to one third of the total current U.S. population.

Pew also found that 53 percent of Americans who use their phones to go online do so at least once per day. That’s more than 47 million daily mobile internet users in the U.S.

One would think that these growth numbers come solely from the increase in smartphones. And while there certainly is a bump, consumers are using more mobile internet even on their regular cell phone. According to Forrester Research, by the end of 2009 only 17 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones. So while the iPhone and Android user consumes more mobile web, the average user using newer feature phones are also hitting the mobile web in droves.

Mobile Web Usage by Demographic:

African-Americans and Hispanics leading mobile usage trends
When we break out mobile web usage by demographic, you find 46 percent of non-Hispanic blacks and 51 percent of English-speaking Hispanics using their phones for internet access, compared with only 33 percent of non-Hispanic white Americans.

The survey also found cell phone ownership is higher among African-Americans and Latinos than among whites (87% vs. 80%) and minority cell phone owners take advantage of a much greater range of their phones’ features compared with white mobile phone users.

Mobile Web Usage by Age

About 65 percent of U.S. cell phone users ages 18-29 go online from their phones, compared with 43 percent of those aged 30-49. Young adults are heavily invested in the mobile web, although 30-49 year olds are gaining ground.

Nine in ten 18-29 year olds own a cell phone, and these young cell owners are significantly more likely than those in other age groups to engage in all of the mobile data applications we asked about in our survey. Among 18-29 year old cell phone owners:

* 95% send or receive text messages
* 93% use their phone to take pictures
* 81% send photos or videos to others
* 65% access the internet on their mobile device
* 64% play music on their phones
* 60% use their phones to play games or record a video
* 52% have used their phone to send or receive email
* 48% have accessed a social networking site on their phone
* 46% use instant messaging on their mobile device
* 40% have watched a video on their phone
* 33% have posted a photo or video online from their phone
* 21% have used a status update service such as Twitter from their phone
* 20% have purchased something using their mobile phone
* 19% have made a charitable donation by text message

Although young adults have the highest levels of mobile data application use among all age groups, utilization of these services is growing fast among 30-49 year olds. Compared with a similar point in 2009, cell owners ages 30-49 are significantly more likely to use a range of mobile data applications on a handheld device.

The mobile data applications with the largest year-to-year increases among the 30-49 year old cohort include taking pictures (83% of 30-49 year old cell owners now do this, a 12-point increase from 2009); recording videos (39% do this, an 18-point increase from 2009); playing music (36% do this, a 15-point increase); using instant messaging (35% now do this, a 14-point increase); and accessing the internet (43% now do this, a 12-point increase compared with 2009).

For more information, click here: Pew Internet Research 2010 Mobile Access Survey

Tap into the power of mobile marketing, give us a call toll-free today @ 877-747-9274..

July 9, 2010 in Blog   |   No Comments

World Cup SMS Interaction high during TV Broadcasts

For many years, our team at QWASI has always wondered how text messaging (SMS) interacts with live sporting events on a large scale. We know from focus groups and polling that customers text while watching TV. Today, consumers multi-task online and mobile while watching TV. And texting is a large draw. Why?

SMS is interactive. It’s two-way. It builds community and connects people. With a huge sporting event that rivals the Olympics in viewership worldwide, the World Cup soccer tournament (football for all of you in the UK), brings together people of many countries together huddle around their TV (online and mobile) – so getting data on texting usage for this event is like a kid in a candy store.

Here’s what our friends at FlowingData had to share. They received data from O2, a popular UK mobile service provider that shows texting volume during the World Cup and highlights the points of interest for UK Cell Phone customers. England scored a goal and lit up the texts – Goooooooooooal.

Here’s a similar response during Rooney’s rant at the games.

Bottom Line: Texting proves the go-to medium to share in the ups and downs… the points on net and the points on your team… The same holds true while tuning into shows in the US. Nothing has been published on this scale, so this is great insight into how people are still human – they love to communicate. And SMS is just that – interactive.

June 29, 2010 in Blog   |   No Comments