Monthly Archives: November 2013

Shopping Popularity Advances on Mobile Devices

According to new report from Usablenet, most smartphone owners are reaching out with their smartphone to shop, and not to talk. Over three-quarters (79 percent) of American shoppers and two-thirds (64 percent) of British shoppers are using smartphones for browsing and shopping via both websites and mobile apps.

Looking deeper at the report we find that 70 percent of American shoppers have their mobile phone while shopping in-store and that a full 30 percent of US shoppers report that they use those mobiles to get a better in-store shopping experience. Additionally it is reported that 77 percent of American shoppers prefer browsing via their smartphone but buy using a tablet or computer. Not surprisingly, most American shoppers do not bring tablets into stores with them (78 percent).

“Right now, we are seeing retail shoppers regularly using their mobile devices to check all sorts of store and product related information while they are shopping” states Kimber Johnson, Pacific App Design’s Managing Director. “Currently there is a massive opportunity for retailers to integrate mobile with their in-store experience and we are seeing savvy businesses taking advantage of this opportunity.”

To better appeal to mobile shoppers, Usablenet suggests that retailers should focus making it simple to buy online, or in-store, by expediating check-outs and making it quick and easy to find about product availability or other product data.

Smartphone Market Continues to Show Huge Growth

comScore has just published a new report detailing that currently 147.9 million people in the U.S. own smartphones (62% of the mobile market). This is up 4.5% since just June of 2013. Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer in their report with 40.6% of the market, while Google’s Android OS led as the top smartphone OS platform with 51.8% of the OS market share.

Over this time period, of the manufacturers, only Apple and Samsung achieved any degree of market share growth (with HTC, Motorola and LG losing market share). Apple ranked as the No. 1 manufacturer with 40.6% of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.7% since June) and Samsung placed second with 24.9% market share (up 1.2%).

Google sites ranked as the top web property when it comes to reach on smartphones, reaching 90% of the mobile media audience (both mobile browsing and app usage), followed by Facebook at 84%, Yahoo! Sites at 82.2% and Amazon Sites at 65.5%. Facebook came in as the top smartphone app, reaching 74.3% of the mobile application audience.

With a current market of 147.9 million people just in the U.S., the mobile market shows no signs of slowing and the mobile web and mobile app markets are becoming increasingly more important as these markets continue to grow.