As for the juiciest details of the report, the key findings of the global mobile analytics market, according to Technavio media and entertainment researchers, include:

• In 2016, the iOS segment dominated the market by occupying almost 63% share
• The Americas dominated the global mobile analytics market with 54% share in 2016
• Adobe Systems, Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, and Microsoft are the leading players in the market

The growing adoption of data analytics is a major market driver, the report summary notes.

To maximize their profits, increase revenue, and reduce costs, organizations use data analytics. It helps in eliminating the major work involved in understanding customers and data tracking processes. Data analytics also helps in attracting new customers and analyze the historical data patterns to provide insights into retaining the existing customers.

Data analytics, the Technavio team adds, also helps in understanding the consumer and providing them with customized services. Through data and customer analytics, insights can be gained about buying patterns of new customers. These insights can be used to strategize and plan ways and means to boost sales and revenue.

Want to know more about the report? The whole shebang is available for purchase here.

The post Technavio: iOS to Dominate the Global Mobile Analytics Market appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

This is despite the Apple iPhone 7 launch in September 2016, eight months ago.

“According to the Q1 2017 MOVR,” the report summary reads, “the Apple iPhone 6S became the most used in February 2017 and is now at almost 8% of all global smartphone browsing. In comparison, the iPhone 6 peaked in popularity a year earlier, February 2016, at 14.6%, 488 days after launch. Today, the iPhone 6S usage continues to grow despite the iPhone 7 launch. The iPhone 7 user-base is still on an upward trajectory, ending March at 3.6%, earning third place among iPhones. Given the size of the iPhone 6 user-base, the upgrade potential for the iPhone 7 and 8 is significant if Apple can retain customers.”

The report announcement notes that this launch trend history is helpful to e-commerce and advertising websites, who rely on mobile optimization to display their products and services accurately and within seconds to customers across all devices. ScientiaMobile offers its WURFL device detection for mobile optimization, image optimization, and device analytics solutions for 99% accurate device detection for companies like Facebook and Google.

To check out the full report, click here.

The post Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Which is the Top Smartphone of Them All? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

MMW learned Monday that iconectiv is behind a new push to safeguard brand reputations by slashing their association with spam.

As consumers increasingly rely upon text messaging for authentic engagement with organizations to conduct a variety of everyday tasks, the last thing they want or need are irrelevant, misdirected texts they did not ask to receive, or worse, their medical, financial and other personal data sent to someone else’s mobile phone.

iconectiv, a partner of the global communications industry connecting more than two billion people every day, have just announced iconectiv Right Party Verification for Messaging. It’s a new service for mobile marketers, messaging aggregators and contact centers to deliver targeted communications, less unwanted spam and happier customers.

“The service was developed in response to evolving Federal Communication Commission (FCC) rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that now dictate companies must have permission not just to send marketing messages to a mobile number but also to have explicit consent to contact the owner of that number,” the company explains, noting how failure to comply can lead to large fines for offending companies. With some 45 million U.S mobile numbers typically reassigned every year, just one communication to a number with a new owner could trigger a fine that is currently set at a minimum $500 per unsolicited contact – increasing to $1,500 per contact for offenses deemed to be deliberate.

The numbers can quickly add up. Recent TCPA enforcement has seen many established and well-known brands endure record-setting legal penalties and multi-million dollar class-action lawsuits.

So how can this new service help?

Part of the iconectiv Messaging Solution “builds on the company’s long history in the mobile numbering space, particularly the transfer of numbers from one service provider to another.”

We’re told that with research showing that around 97 percent of messages are opened within three minutes, protecting the integrity of text messaging outreach is vital to today’s mobile marketing efforts.

“Right Party Verification for Messaging means companies can have renewed confidence in one of the most popular forms of customer engagement,” said Scott Puopolo, Executive Vice President of Information Solutions at iconectiv. “When managed correctly, text messaging is a powerful tool that delivers the right message into the hands of the right people. Handled badly, it can alienate customers, damage brand integrity, and lead to costly fines.”

To check out what iconectiv can do for you and for your reputation, check out the company’s official website here.

The post New Messaging Solution Helps Companies Avoid Spamming appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

But according to a host of influencers, commentators, and futurists, we “ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.” Though many emerging technologies — from Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) — got a lot of press in 2016, mobile still has untapped opportunities we may witness in 2017.

Koetsier asked a coterie of experts and influencers including Bryan Kramer, Joel Comm, Tamara McCleary, Travis Wright, Hillel Fuld, and Robert Scoble what they think is around the bend.

One topic that emerged immediately was the iPhone 8, still in design and development, which could be the smartphone that incorporates all the new tech (AI, VR, AR) people have been talking about. Others see Chatbots as an emerging trend. Then there’s tech guru Tamara McCleary, who believes 2017 could be the breakout year for mobile to connect with the Internet of Things (IoT) in a big, big way.

The thing is this: smartphones have gone way beyond being “phones” to encompass everything about our lives. It’s where our friends are listed, information is stored, photos are archived. It’s how we look things up, hail a ride, shop, pay bills, communicate with co-workers, family, and friends. It’s how we entertain ourselves — whether it’s by reading via the web, listening to music, watching a video, or checking in with social media.

In other words, as experts might put it, print is dying and there’s a lot of dust on the TV. And cord-cutting? That’s progressing exponentially, especially as millennials make decisions that default to mobile rather than increasingly obsolete cords and cables.

Could it be that the word “desktop” might fade from the lexicon? The experts think so. Ask yourself this: when’s the last time you even used the word?

Do you think it seems like everyone is on their phones half the time? Expect that to nudge closer to most of the time. Analyst and tech journalist Stewart Rogers believes we’ll spend more time on mobile in 2017, without a doubt. And we’ll spend more money via mobile.

“In 2016, mobile directly influenced $500 billion in retail sales in the U.S. alone,” Rogers said. “New data tells us that 80 percent of consumers now turn to a smartphone before they turn to a human for assistance. And none of this is slowing down in 2017.”

Koetsier cites an interesting prediction from Chetan Sharma, a 22-year veteran of the mobile ecosphere who has an interesting take one potential 2017 development: “Mobile is everywhere and in everything to a point we will stop using the word mobile.”

What will we say? Not phone. Not mobile. Maybe instead of saying we have to check our mobile, we’ll just be saying we need to check in with our lives.

To read more about the predictions Koetsier elicited from his future-predictors, go here.

The post Mobile 2017: A New Year Brings Fresh Predictions About Mobile’s Future appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The platform includes a series of powerful new dashboards that make it easier than ever for multi-location brands to track their customers’ online-to-offline journeys and calculate the ROI of their mobile marketing efforts.

The MomentFeed platform helps multi-location brands such as Jamba Juice, Avis, and Starbucks target consumers at the most influential moments in their online path to purchase.

This includes managing all pages for every store across all major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, Yelp!, Twitter. Through MomentFeed’s innovative approach to local, regional and national marketing organic and paid campaigns, the company is able to provide unique sets of data, including data from Facebook Local Insights, that haven’t been available to multi-location brands directly.

“We’re always looking for data to inform our marketing and operations. MomentFeed’s new People Nearby vs. Paid Impressions dashboard is our new go-to for conversion tracking as we haven’t seen this overlay of paid impressions to store traffic anywhere else,” said Deidre Hazelbaker at Tire Discounters, the nation’s eighth-largest independent tire retailer. “Another ROI capability we’ve been wishing for and now can see through MomentFeed is the relationship between campaign spend and regional sales. We can segment our stores by regions and groups to see what’s working, and expand major markets or campaigns based on direct offline attribution. These new capabilities are key to our 2017 strategy.”

The post Multi-Location Brands Score New Online-to-Offline Customer Journey Tracking Tools appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Todd Miller, VP Global Sales at Cheetah Mobile.

Still want to talk stats?

When it comes to proof of the importance of being in this market, you just have to look at the number of international companies spending billions in acquisitions and partnerships to get a toehold in North America.

According to economic research firm Rhodium Group, Chinese companies alone will invest up to $30 billion this year, double what was spent in 2015. Chinese acquisitions of U.S. assets and businesses hit a record $8 billion for the first eight months of the year alone. Compare that to the previous record of $8.9 billion set in 2007, according to data from Dealogic. And that was for the full year.

From Movies to Oil and Gas to Apps

This year we’ve seen truly blockbuster deals starting with Dalian Wanda’s $2.6 billion acquisition of AMC Entertainment, the U.S. movie theatre chain, and Sinopec’s $2.4 billion investment in a number of oil and gas developments from Devon Energy. And of course there’s the ever popular tech sector. App marketing company AppLovin has agreed to a friendly takeover by a Chinese private equity firm for $1.42 billion.

Far from ebbing as an economic powerhouse, although India and China have seen explosive economic growth in the last decade, in other metrics the tide of U.S. influence continues to rise.

Still A Leader

After all, U.S. corporations still represent 128 of the most influential institutions in the world according to the Fortune 500 list. While the global marketplace has become more diverse, the U.S. is still a leader in innovation. It leads in R&D spending which predictably results in a constant stream of new products and services. Often that next big thing that the rest of the world is copying sprouts from the American spirit of invention.  And who’s gonna buy that breakthrough time-saving device? Let’s not forget that the U.S. is still ranked number one in global consumer spending.

What about the art and science of persuasion? The U.S. is a global leader in industry sectors that tend to spend a lot on influencing choice: public relations, marketing, including technology, retail, and financial sectors.

Most industries rely on positive consumer sentiment for their products and services to some extent. Brand management plays a key role in building and maintaining a company’s reputation. It’s natural that an agency’s market footprint is disproportionately higher in the U.S. than elsewhere. And the U.S leads in using new tools, such as social media marketing, and continues to set the trends.

Cheetah Next Steps

It was during a trip to Silicon Valley that Cheetah’s founders made two important decisions: to pivot from a PC-based strategy to mobile and to target the U.S. for its expansion plans. Cheetah leapt even further into the European and U.S. market with the acquisition of MobPartner in 2015 for $58 million. Cheetah Mobile now has 623 million users all around the world, but for reasons set out above — the U.S. is key to it running a truly global operation. And the company has deepened its investment in Silicon Valley with the recent opening of its new U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. Cheetah Mobile’s dual-headquarter strategy – Beijing and Silicon Valley – straddles the two central hubs for the mobile Internet, enabling it to leverage opportunities across both countries.

For now the bulk of its workforce remains in China, but establishing a name and presence in the U.S. will mean a global advantage. After all, 80 percent of the company’s user base comes from outside of China, which makes it unique among Chinese tech companies.

Yes, there have been some growing pains, as the company integrates the infrastructure of acquired parties and builds out its own regional sales teams. That’s been the challenge for my first 100 days with the company.

But now Cheetah is poised to have a focused and streamlined offer for U.S. agencies and advertisers. And that’s access to big data insights from more than 600 million monthly active users, harnessed to target a global market place, whatever the vertical.

Finally, much has been made of the ascendency of the Chinese economy. As Forbes pointed out recently, the global influence of the U.S. was captured by the old adage that “when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” Today, those symptoms now appear when China does the same. But when Chinese companies want to become truly global players, they come here.

The post Op-Ed: The Path To Global Success Still Runs Through the U.S. appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The market in question is now forecast to approach $700 billion in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 14%.

“The mobile value added services market size can be segregated on the basis of verticals, solutions, end-use, and regions,” explain the authors of a new industry report.

The report was released by GMInsights.

The prime verticals are telecom & IT, retail, media and entertainment, healthcare, government, education and BFSI. Key solutions include mobile infotainment, mobile advertising, location-based services, mobile money, multimedia messaging services, mobile email & IM and short message services. Enterprises and consumers are the two end-use segments.

According to a provide report summary, U.S. mobile VAS market size is expected to continue its dominance followed by Europe and Asia Pacific.

“Asia Pacific mobile value added services market share is likely to observe significant gains over the forecast period owing to increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets,” a provided report summary notes.

To learn more, check out the report’s table of contents here.

The post Mobile Value Added Services Market Size Set for Continued Growth appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Plus, the story of autistic British man, Laurie Love, has been widely publicized. Accused of stealing data from various US government sites, he faces extradition to America and a possible 99-year prison sentence. Then there’s the ominous commentary relating to the potential for some kind of terrifying cyberwar between the US and Russia.

All the major, high-profile hacks that have come to light this year (the Yahoo! debacle, the 164 million LinkedIn users involved in a breach and the 360 million MySpace customers who found that their data was compromised) were the result of weak passwords that were cracked by hackers.

These incidents have resulted in a surge of information, published on the net, designed to help companies and individuals encrypt their online activities with effective passwords.

Insurance specialists Hiscox posted this handy password test, Financial Times published a ‘safe password quiz’ (which is based on this research paper) and Yahoo! Tech – rather ironically – provided us with this guide. Pretty useful stuff to separate your weak passwords (example: ‘p@ssword’) from your strong (jelly22fi$h***g4635) ones.

To get a wider perspective on why having a quality password is so important, we reached out to security expert, Ken Munro, a partner at security company Pen Test Partners, and a public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity.

Munro told Mobile Marketing Watch this week:

“I’ll start by saying this: I think that it is good that hacking is being covered in the mainstream media.

“Awareness of security issues is always a good thing.”

We asked Munro what sort of implications exist for the customers of businesses who do not use suitable passwords.

“In terms of the end user,” he says, “the implications are massive: becoming victims of direct fraud, having identities stolen or getting credit cards details pinched.”

“Also, collateral damage – when people use the same password for several websites. One account gets breached and then they all do.”

So, given the repercussions of a cyber attack, why don’t all businesses have this sort of thing covered? According to Munro, tackling the finer details of cyber security can put some businesses off implementing it altogether.

“We have to be careful not to make [online security] appear too complicated or too clever to businesses,” Munro told us. “Otherwise, they might think, ‘I’ll never be able to get my head around this so I won’t bother’.

“If they don’t take steps to secure themselves, they are just waiting for a denial-of-service attack or to be used as part of a botnet.”

Munro makes it clear that cyber safety is major issue for businesses, but what are the immediate steps for individuals worried about online security? According to this feature, published by BT, as long as you stick to a few basic rules when creating a password, you should be alright. Avoiding obvious words or combinations (like your name, home town or date of birth), and using at least 12 characters including a variety of letters, numbers and symbols, is a good start. And, as Hiscox succinctly outline in their password test, don’t give it away yourself.

The post The Most Important Article You Will Read This Week appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Mobile phone shipments are expected to tumble 1.6 percent this year but will return to growth next year.

That’s according to Gartner, Inc. Researchers at the respected firm say that worldwide combined shipments for devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are expected to decline 3 percent in 2016.

This will mark the second consecutive year of decline.

The global devices market fell by 0.75 percent in 2015.

“The global devices market is not on pace to return to single-digit growth soon,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “Growth is on pace to remain flat during the next five years. All segments are expected to decline in 2016, except for premium ultramobiles and utility mobile phones (entry level phones), which are expected to show single-digit growth this year.”

“We expect premium ultramobiles will start benefiting from the collective performance and integration of the latest Intel CPU platform and Windows 10,” Atwal added.

To learn more, check out the full report here.

The post Down We Go: Mobile Phone Shipments Continue Global Slide appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

RSF ships for a growing number of e-commerce companies and it has learned a great deal about the pros and cons of each.

When it comes to eCommerce order fulfillment, RSF says that the technology used is vitally important. Having seamless operations that can, for instance, sync automatically with the real-time purchases in a company’s online store will go a long way in preventing an eCommerce store from joining the vast graveyard of similar businesses that failed in large part because of inadequate or inadequately used technology.  To learn more about the eCommerce technology used by RSF, click here).

Now, the Red Stag Fulfillment crew is offering a handy guide to the major platforms serving the customers that it also serves. The guide gives basic information about the platforms that work with both small to medium and medium to large e-commerce companies.

For small to medium outfits, RSF reviews Woo, Shopify, OpenCart, and PrestaShop. For medium to large e-commerce companies, it reviews Magento, BigCommerce, and ShopifyPlus.

Included in each shopping platform review is an overview, cost information, features description, benefits details, customer support info, and details on any drawbacks Red Stag believes its audience needs to know.

For instance, its overview of Woo notes that “Woo Commerce is a free WordPress plugin which allows you to sell through your WordPress website. It also offers additional paid features you can add on. This option is known to be affordable and allows you to make sales, process secure payments, manage inventory and shipping, and manage taxes automatically. It is recommended for retailers earning revenues that range from $0-$500,000.”

It’s a very informative guide for the customers that RSF was created to serve.

“There are pros and cons to every platform – but ultimately, the right choice will depend on your company’s size and unique needs,” notes the company. “In our business at Red Stag Fulfillment as a third party fulfillment provider, we know our customers need an e-commerce solution they can rely on, and we regularly hear feedback on the good and bad of various platforms. Hopefully this guide (can help) you in your decision process.”

To review the guide in full, click here. And for more information on what RSF can do for the reliability and growth of your eCommerce business, check out the company here.

The post Red Stag Fulfillment Offers Handy Guide to E-Commerce Platforms appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.