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comScore, Inc released a study of touchscreen mobile phone adoption in the U.S.and touchscreen phone adoption is growing rapidly. iPhone, LG Dare, LG Voyager (which also has a keyboard) BlackBerry Storm and Palm Treo top the list. The LG Dare used to be one of the few Verizon feature phones with email access that did not require a data plan. The younger crowd seems to be more "touchy" with higher percentages of touchscreen users in the younger demographics.

The study showed a significant 159-percent growth rate during the past year to 23.8 million users in August 2009.

The growth in touchscreen device adoption substantially outpaced the already strong 63-percent growth in U.S. adoption of smartphones. iPhone leads

Touchscreen Smartphone Adoption 3 Months Ending August 2009 vs. August 2008 Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers, Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
Device Type	Subscribers (000)
	Aug-08	Aug-09	Percent Change
Touchscreen	9,219	23,843	159%
Smartphone	20,735	33,779	63%

Mobile advertising network, Millennial Media and DM2PRO.com, collaborated to explore of attitudes and spending plans of leading agencies and brands. The responses resulted in the development of "State of the Industry: Mobile Advertising".

CPG, Retail, Entertainment, Travel and Restaurant categories are expected to lead mobile spending; which is somewhat consistent with who is spending the most in mobile advertising today. Engagement leads the number one sought return for an investment in mobile marketing, though "opt-in", or list building, was cited as the most likely goal for Q4 campaigns.

• The largest cohorts replied that they will spend less than $100K in mobile advertising in 2009; however, that number jumps significantly in 2010.  With 60% of non-mobile marketers planning to employ mobile advertising in 2010, the increase in mobile spend is among the leading highlights:
• Mobile spending is expected to increase next year, with 31% of agency respondents stating that they will invest between $100K and $249K.
• More than 15% plan to invest more than $1M and 2.6% projected spending of greater than $5M.

The fourth quarter releases of smartphones including Android and BlackBerry, along with the success of the HTC Touch Pro2  are helping fuel a positive outlook for the wireless market in Q4.  We talked with senior research analyst Ramon Llamas at IDC who just released the IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

"The HTC Touch Pro2 is the kind of Windows experience that people have been wanting to see," remarked Llamas about the sold-out Windows smartphone. The HTC Touch Pro2 went on sale in September at Verizon, sold-out, came back-in-stock for a day and then sold-out again.

Another factor, contributing to his positive outlook for smartphones, is Verizon's Droid, "Everyone is optimistic on many fronts. Motorola is hopeful and Verizon is very positive," Llamas said.

Llamas pointed out that Motorola and Verizon are positioning the Droid feature-set squarely against the iPhone which shows their confidence in Droid. 

Smartphones such as the Motorola Cliq, HTC Hero, BlackBerry Storm2 and BlackBerry Bold 9700 contribute to the optimism for the growing smartphone market.

"The mobile phone market is showing the first signs of improvement since the onset of the economic crisis," Llamas said "During the third quarter, we saw a number of channels promoting older devices at significantly lower prices. For many, this was enough to spur demand and push volumes higher. Now that we have moved into the fourth quarter, vendors are setting the stage for further gains by launching their flagship devices to meet pent-up demand."

Personal computer (PC) vendors are eyeing up the booming smartphone market to offset a slump in computer sales, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales will grow by 29 per cent year-over-year to reach 180 million units in 2009, overtaking notebooks in total unit terms.

Currently smartphones account for 14 per cent of overall mobile device sales, but Gartner expects by 2012 they will make up around 37 per cent of global handset sales. Smartphone revenue is forecast to reach US$191 billion by 2012, higher than end user spending on mobile PCs, which is forecast to reach US$152 billion in 2012. From 2009, user spending on smartphones will start to surpass the forecast for consumer notebooks.

According to Gartner, PC vendors' cumulative share (Apple excluded) of the smartphone market has been static at less than 1 per cent for years. By the end of 2009, Gartner expects that all major PC vendors will have announced their aim to have a presence in the smartphone market. However, Gartner does not expect the share of any single PC vendor to rise above 2 per cent in the smartphone market during the next three years.

AdMob's latest metrics show explosive  mobile web and application usage over the past two years.The report  highlights the rapid growth in usage of mobile websites and applications on new devices in the past year.

In September 2008, the Motorola RAZR was the top device in the US, and the iPhone was the only touchscreen device in the Top 10. In September 2009, the list of the top 10 devices includes five with touchscreens, six with Wi-Fi capabilities, and six with application stores.  These devices are responsible for a much higher percentage of mobile usage than their share of handsets sold.

The top phones in September were the the iPhone, iPod Touch, T-Mobile G1, Samsung Messager (Metro PCS), and Palm Pre.


However, feature phones like the Samsung R450 and Motorola RAZR V3 still represent 60 percent of ad requests in the US.  The strong mobile web usage on these feature phones is likely driven by unlimited data plans.

Highlights from the September 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report include:

• Devices running on the Android Operating System (OS) accounted for 17 percent of smartphone traffic in AdMob's network in the US in September 2009, up from 13 percent in August 2009. The HTC Dream (G1) was the number three device and the HTC Magic was the number 10 device in September 2009 in the US. As with the iPhone OS, much of the Android traffic in AdMob's network came from applications.
  

DFC Intelligence predicts the worldwide market for portable and mobile games is expected to grow to $11.7 billion by 2014. The primary driver of this growth is expected to be the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch systems.

By 2014, sales for games on the iPhone/iPod Touch are expected to account for about 24% of total portable game software sales.

"The dedicated portable game systems from companies like Nintendo and Sony are still expected to lead the market, but it appears growth for these devices has peaked. The platforms from Apple are expected to be responsible for the bulk of market growth over the next few years," says DFC analyst David Cole.

DFC also released some results from a study on the mobile game habits of over 8,000 game players in North America and Europe. 54% of respondents in North America and 69% of respondents in Europe had played a game on their mobile phone in the past year.

Javelin Strategy & Research issued a new report that reveals that banks' marketing efforts are not keeping pace with their actual mobile-banking services, and the imbalance is causing limited adoption of mobile-banking by consumers. Javelin's observations come from a study produced by the company's blend of quantitative consumer data, industry research data, experienced industry staff and rigorous process, which included 26 criteria for this particular study.

The study, 2009 U.S. Mobile Banking Benchmark Scorecard, found that 50 percent of financial institutions do not adequately address consumers' two primary mobile banking concerns. The report also rates the mobile-banking offerings of 18 top financial institutions based on features, access to mobile-banking services and marketing. Gold-category winners identified by Javelin include Bank of America, Chase, Citi, USAA and Wells Fargo.

Teens have very distracted driving habits according to second annual Vlingo Consumer Mobile Messaging Habits Report The Vlingo report finds 60 percent of teens admit to reading incoming text messages while driving.

Text messaging has overtaken the phone as the primary communications medium for teens. According to the Vlingo study, 94 percent of teens use their mobile phones to send text messages. Fifty-four percent send more than 500 text messages per month and 79 percent send more text messages than make phone calls. Teens use text messaging primarily to communicate with friends (72 percent).

While 62 percent of teens support making driving while texting (DWT) illegal, only 34 percent favor making it illegal if a hands-free solution was available. Notably, teens are in favor of technology that would make DWT safer. Ninety percent of teens would use a technology solution that let them speak text and email messages by voice and have incoming messages read to them while driving instead of typing.

The first Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) products are already lining up, ahead of a specification ratified by the Bluetooth SIG. According to a recent study from ABI Research, the BLE market will develop in two very separate stages. How well the players in each stage understand the technology and its potential will determine its success.

BLE is supported by two different technology implementations: dual mode and single mode ICs. By and large the two modes of IC will also be produced by two different groups of vendors, with each dependant on the investment and commitment of the other. Next year, single mode ICs will account for less than 3% of BLE chipset shipments.

Just over 2.5 billion BLE chipsets will ship in 2014 in a market that will grow at 78% CAGR between 2009 and 2014; but less than a third of those shipments will be for the single mode ICs.

"BLE will enter the market in two stages," says principal analyst Jonathan Collins. "First with support for BLE embedded in mobile handsets, and then a second stage when BLE devices come to market. Key is that both dual mode and single mode suppliers are confident that each will deliver and support BLE.

BLE will enable sensors and monitors to communicate with mobile handsets and other BLE-enabled devices using very low power communications. While existing low power short range applications such as sports and fitness equipment will be the first devices to market, there is further potential for more serious BLE health monitoring applications.

Gomez examined consumers' mobile Web experiences and expectations, in a study conducted by Equation Research on behalf of Gomez. The survey of 1001 mobile Web users found that:

• Two out of three have encountered problems when accessing websites on their mobile phones in the last 12 months.
• Slow load times were their number one issue, experienced by almost 75 percent of them.
• More than half reported that the website content was either too large or small for the size of their mobile phone's screen.

Newly released forecasts by technology and media specialist Coda Research Consultancy show that mobile broadband search and display ad revenues in the US will grow to US$4.2bn in 2015, up from US$1bn in 2010.

Smartphone satisfaction is improving while mobile phone satisfaction is decreasing according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Study-Volume 2 and the 2009 Wireless Business Smartphone Satisfaction Study.

iPhone leads for both business and consumer smartphone satisfaction, followed by LG and BlackBerry. Smartphone owners are giving up their landlines, want Wi-Fi and download entertainment/business apps.

In the Traditional handset market, LG leads in satisfaction.. Customers who "buy" free phones are least satisfied.

Apple ranks highest among manufacturers of smartphones used primarily for personal reasons, with a score of 811, and performs particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design. LG (776) and RIM BlackBerry (759) follow Apple in the rankings.

Among customers who use their smartphones primarily for business purposes, Apple ranks highest with a score of 803, followed by RIM BlackBerry (724).

Satisfaction among consumer smartphone owners has increased by 14 index points (on a 1,000-point scale) from just six months ago, while satisfaction among business owners has increased by 43 index points from 2008 as these devices have become more stylish, customizable and user-friendly.

The studies also find the following key wireless handset usage patterns:

• Among consumer smartphone owners, 22 percent want Wi-Fi capability in their next handset, while 21 percent want touch-screen capabilities and 17 percent want GPS capability.
• More than 40 percent of consumer smartphone owners report entirely replacing landline calling with mobile phone calling, while only 27 percent of traditional handset owners have done the same.
• Among business smartphone owners, more than one-half report downloading third-party games for entertainment, while 46 percent report downloading travel software such as maps and weather applications-indicating business users are also integrating their devices into their personal lives. In addition, nearly one-half of owners (46%) report downloading business utility applications to increase productivity.
  

SEVEN, released results from its semi-annual user community survey. Of the more than 1,000 global subscribers who completed the online survey, the majority ranked services and applications as the key drivers in selecting a device, while device form factor and appeal ranked second. Other top factors include push email and real-time updates.

Conducted in August, the online survey included 20 questions related to mobile messaging usage, including the importance of specific applications, quality of the user experience, and expected future usage.

"Hands down, consumer and business users from all four corners of the globe feel that services and applications are most important in the device selection process," said Isabelle Dumont, senior director of marketing at SEVEN. "This belief is well-aligned with our overall strategy of working with global manufacturers and operators to integrate SEVEN push-enabled services into new devices before they even hit the shelves."

Current, mobile handset power requirements are growing at a faster rate than handset battery capacity can handle reports IMS Research.

The gap between power available to users and the power need for power handset features threatens to slow the connected and mobile lifestyle of consumers. Features such as high data throughput, faster processors and beautiful displays all drain battery power.  The strongest battery available now  at 1500 mAh  will only provide six hours of battery life.

They say that handset power capacity limitations spell trouble for a number of players across the entire mobile handset industry.

According to a report from Scarborough Research in partnership with The Nielsen Company and Arbitron, working moms are among the country's highest spenders on cellular phone services, spending 21% more than the average cellular user on their wireless bills monthly

The average cellular bill for Working Moms is $94, versus $78 for all cell phone users. Working mothers also are 42% more likely than the average cellular user to download content to their phone.

"The Working Mother is the gatekeeper for purchases related to clothing, feeding and making a home for her family. Her high spending on cellular services together with her propensity to download content via her cell phone imply that mobile marketing could be an important platform for reaching her with product announcements, offers and other promotions," said Howard Goldberg, Senior Vice President of agency services, Scarborough Research.

The number of smartphones sold each year will increase from around 165.2 million in 2009 to 422.96 million in 2013, with the total number of smartphone users approaching 1.6 billion, according to Wireless Expertise, a wireless market research and consulting firm. Its latest report "The future of mobile application storefronts" shows how smartphone penetration will reach approximately 28-30% of the total mobile market by 2013.

  

Wireless Expertise forecasts that the global mobile app market - including games - will be worth $4.66 billion in 2009, rising to $16.60 billion, in 2013. With mobile phones outnumbering PCs around the world by 4:1, mobile applications represent an even bigger opportunity for the mobile industry than the fixed-line perceived the internet a decade ago.

An Amdocs survey explored what influences the customer experience when shopping at retail stores, along with brand perceptions.
 
Despite the option to purchase devices and plans online, consumers are still choosing to visit service providers' retail outlets. The top three reasons cited for visiting a retail store were:

• The ability to obtain the device right away.
• Direct access to the device to "touch and feel" it before purchasing.
• To consult with an expert regarding the device's features and rate plans.

While 60 percent of those surveyed visited retail outlets intending to make a purchase, one in four left without buying.

• Top reasons for abandoning the purchase was the store representative was either not knowledgeable enough about the devices or service plans
• or that the wait time to complete the transaction was too long.
• Store sales staff received the lowest customer ratings in the areas of speed of service, as well as for their concern as to whether the customer had purchased the best service plan or phone to meet their needs
• Highest ratings were awarded for courtesy and friendliness.
  
• The survey found that a smartphone transaction can take up to an average of 15 percent longer than a traditional phone purchase, with increased time and resources devoted to identifying the right product, completing the paperwork and finalizing the purchase.

The music ringtone market is within the decline stage of its short life cycle, according to industry research firm IBISWorld. The company forecasts industry revenue to decline for the second consecutive year - down 15 percent from its $880 million peak in 2007 - totalling just $750 million in 2009.

Juniper Research predicts consumer demand for environmentally sustainable mobile devices will be the primary driver behind the growth of green handsets. Green handsets global shipments could grow to 485 million units by 2014.

With a number of challenges facing vendors and operators, such as the Kyoto Protocol, a concerted effort is required by companies across the industry to reduce these average emissions by a far greater extent over the next five years.

Doctors are taking to iPhone, BlackBerry and smartphone apps. According to the MDsearch.com Smartphone Survey, 53% of physician respondents own a smartphone and 63% of those physicians are using mobile medical applications.

They found that drug reference apps (like Epocrates) were cited most often in their study, while medical calculators, clinical resource apps, CME apps, medical dictionary apps, and apps for patient scheduling were also used. A smaller number are also using mobile applications for electronic health records and e-prescribing.