Top 10 activities and predictions in mobile 2009 to 2010

Over Christmas and New Year, GoMo News is posting articles written for us by leaders and innovators in the mobile space. Start-ups and established businesses from all over the industry have sent us piece looking back at the year that was, and ahead to 2010. Magnus Jern CEO of Golden Gekko wrote this piece. Golden Gekko is a leading developer of  mobile marketing apps and widgets.

To predict the future we must first understand the past. Therefore this year’s top 10 list consists of the top 5 activities in mobile 2009 and our top 5 predictions for 2010.

Top 5 Mobile Activities 2009

1. The year of mobile marketing
2009 was the year of mobile marketing, despite a very difficult financial environment for the advertising industry. The main indicator was that for the first time brands and businesses across the board took a spontaneous interest in mobile marketing. We now know that the demand is there. The second indicator was Googles $750M bid for AdMob, showing the major internet players are now getting serious about mobile.

Now we can concentrate on building a long term profitable marketing channel together with partners and customers.

2. Shift from advertising to marketing
We are now looking at “engagements” rather than “impressions”. 2009 saw mobile marketing budgets being invested in mobile websites and apps, rather than display or search. So while overall marketing budgets increased hugely, the growth in mobile display advertising was very small. We believe that the trend is more positive as it shows that brands want to engage customers and not only hit them with ads.

3. Appstore explosion
2009 was the year of app mania. The Apple store showed 2 billion downloads and 100k available apps, and iPhone apps became a “must do” in any digital marketing strategy. The Android store reached 20.000 apps by the end of the year. Myriad new appstores appeared, including Nokia OVI, Blackberry App World, Windows Market and more, while existing independent appstores like Getjar and Mobango grew exponentially.

4. Increased budgets
As attention gathered, and agencies looked for ways to differentiate themselves, mobile ad budgets increased despite the tough financial markets. The biggest mobile budget of the year was most likely Nokia to promote Ovi but other more traditional brands such as Volkswagen and Coca Cola also assigned low to medium six digit budgets.

5. Smartphone craze
The main driver of the mobile app and browsing was smartphone sales lead by Symbian, Blackberry and iPhone. Marketers were surprised by Q3 figures showing that iPhone is still number three in sales despite 80% of the media attention. What it shows is that the battle is not won yet.

Source: Canalys. 2009 unit figures calculated from reported market share in new sales

Top 5 Predictions for 2010

1. Improved efficiency in mobile service development
Mobile app and web development became substantially costlier in 2009. As mobile becomes more established in 2010, we should see more standardised tools, enhanced processes and improved efficiency. More time and resources can then be spent on user experience, design and usability testing.

2. Mobile becomes a business critical platform
Companies like BMW, Coca Cola, McDonald’s and Lufthansa are already making money from mobile. This will only grow stronger. This may also slow development down for a while as departments’ battle about the ownership of budgets and resources but the long-term implication is that the mobile platform will become just as important as the web.

3. Increased mobile platform fragmentation
Mobile marketers will want massive campaigns targeting the largest possible audiences. And that means doing more than just an iPhone app. Multiple mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, Java, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc) and channels (apps, mobile websites and messaging/SMS) require a high degree of complexity. Mobile specialists will have a big responsibility in making a complex environment simple without dumbing it down. The objective should always be to offer the best user experience for each platform and this means delivering a mix of mobile web and mobile apps for many years to come.

4. iPhone growth slows down, Android picks up and others stay neutral
The growth of iPhone sales slows down as mobile operators reduce subsidies and promotions for the device whereas Android with a more mobile operator friendly model picks up with new devices from LG, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola. The operators will also continue to promote other platforms such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile and LiMo as well as feature phones to avoid domination by Google.

5. Mobile network collapse under traffic load
AT&T has seen a 5000% increase in mobile data network traffic over the last three years. The 3-4% of people with iPhones generated 50% of all US mobile data traffic in 2009, with similar problems in the UK. Mobile operators will not and cannot keep up with the demand due to shareholder pressure to keep capex investments at a minimum and maximize short term profits. Our prediction is that mobile network reliability and performance in 2010 will get considerably worse as smartphone sales and usage increases. The short term solution by operators will be to shift more traffic to wifi networks but with the lack of open wifi infrastructure in Europe this won’t help much. Longer term capacity will build up thanks to competitive forces and consumer demand for a reliable service.

Thanks Magnus!