This post was originally written by Brandon Hollembeak, Product Manager – Advertising Products & Services
What percentage of all mobile phones is it going to take to start calling smartphones just phones? 80%? 100%? More? (kidding!)
Last week, NielsenWire released the results of a January 2012 survey relating smartphone adoption to age and income. As I posted last year, a similar report in June 2011 showed that 1/3 of all mobile phone subscribers had a smartphone, and this survey shows that has grown to almost half of all mobile subscribers (48%). With smartphones continuously improving and becoming more ubiquitous, the older models of smartphones are driven down to very affordable prices, making them more attractive to late-adopters, as it’s not as large a commitment as a brand new $300-500 phone.
It took from the creation of the smartphone to 2011 to reach 30% market penetration, making the 18% growth in the last year quote an impressive trend. You can see this more clearly in the second graph, showing the total smartphone adoption by age group vs. purchases in the last three months. The 25-34 age group hasn’t changed much and continues to increase steadily, while the large jumps are in the 55-64 and 65+ age groups, where more than half of the new purchases in 55-64 are smartphones, meaning that total is going to increase rapidly over the next quarter.
But what does this all mean to me?, you ask? Hopefully you’re not still wondering if you should be taking advantage of mobile platforms to reach your customers. Smartphones can perform most tasks people need to communicate and research today: Internet browsing, texting, QR code links, location-based messaging and soon to be more in 2012. I’ve written several posts in the past regarding the Apartments.com Mobile Infusion product, which provides a simple, complete solution to find and engage with customers.
Is mobile part of your marketing strategy? If so, what type of mobile marketing are you using?
