WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

An asknet survey of 400 smartphone users has found that  consumers are frustrated by the cost, accessibility, and mechanisms supporting mobile e-commerce, in spite of a strong consumer demand for personal and business mobile applications.
 
The survey, conducted simultaneously in Boston and San Francisco in late 2009, found that despite building consumer demand for applications, over a third (38%) of smartphone users said they were frustrated with the high cost of applications. A similar percentage (29%) said they were uncomfortable entering credit card details for mobile purchasing. Overall, when asked why they didn't buy applications - including music, games, business applications or consumer software - for their phone, 34% said that it was just 'not worth the time or effort'.

In the survey, almost half of respondents (45%) said they had never bought applications or software for their smartphone. Of the 55 percent that had bought software or applications for their smartphone, over four-fifths (87%) had spent less than $50 in a year, 9% had spent $51-100, 3% had spent $101-150, and 1% said they spent more than $150 a year on apps and downloads.
When asked about the downloading and purchasing habits of those that had bought items, 61% had bought music in the last year, 41% had bought games, 35% ringtones 33% news, 29% GPS/location-based software and 27% had bought business applications.

The survey also revealed significant consumer demand for specific applications: when asked what they would like to buy more of for their phone, 63% said they would spend more money on music, 51% said they would buy more business applications, 48% wanted access to GPS applications, and 37% said they wanted to purchase games.

In terms of smartphone models owned, the asknet survey found that RIM's BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone topped the list, with more than half (53%) of those polled in Boston owning a BlackBerry, 37% owning iPhones, and 10% owning other brands. On the West Coast 41% owned other models, a third (34%) owned a RIM BlackBerry and a quarter (25%) owned an Apple iPhone.
 
The top three wireless network providers were AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, with AT&T leading in responses (43%) followed by Verizon (31%) and T-Mobile (19%) across the entire survey group.

In late October 2009, analyst firm ABI Research revised its forecast of the mobile commerce market's sales for this year upwards from $544 million which it predicted in January 2009 to $750 million, representing an 117% year-on-year growth rate. It expects sales to surpass $1 billion in 2010. However, despite obvious growth, there is evidence that many consumers are still not convinced.

asknet is a leading provider of e-commerce distribution solutions for leading software companies including DivX, F-Secure, Nero, and Panda Security. Since 1995, asknet has seen consistent growth, and in Q3 2009, asknet announced an increase in gross profits of 2.4 million Euros, an 11% increase from Q3 2008. asknet's Mobile Shopping Cart solution is designed to let customers purchase and download products or software directly by the mobile phone, safely, securely and without exposing credit card details.

F-Secure has successfully used asknet's Mobile Shopping Cart to sell its mobile security software through its mobile shop since it was first implemented in December 2007.