To prove that we don’t all use iPhones Mobify have delved into the data from over 200-million website visitors and looked at screen sizes. From the millions of visits they’ve created the Screen size diversity infographic below, which compares the screen sizes to man’s best friends, but god knows why because it doesn’t really help make things any clearer.

If you were to base your whole mobile strategy on this then you’d be making a big mistake. If you add up all the figures you get 88.3% leaving 11.7% for the rest of the mobile web which seems bugger all and not worth bothering with. BIG MISTAKE.  I’ve got a house full of them and I use them all to get on the web on a daily basis and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, every morning I’m surrounded by people on trains and tubes with small devices. Look at it this way, nearly all the devices on this chart are NOT mobiles, they’re tablets, and tablets are used in different places and at different times to mobiles.

If you class the top end of mobile screens to be somewhere around the 480×800 ie the Galaxy Note  S II or even the Galaxy S III 1280×720 you’ll see that it doesn’t even get in the top ten – somewhat bizarre considering the Galaxy S III  was the best selling smartphone last year.  If you then redo the math you’ll see that the missing devices which make up the 11.7% not mentioned on this top ten actually becomes slightly over 50% while the 11.4% for the iPhone should be slightly under 50%. Yes that’s right if you only cater for the iPhone you risk ignoring more that half of the mobile devices on the market.

Take a tablet to the beach and go shopping - but not with a Kindle

According to stats from US consumer shopping site dealnews, Americans are hardly ever unplugged – especially during summer holidays. According to dealnews traffic data, Americans shop on average 38% more from their mobile devices on summer holidays with the majority of mobile traffic coming from the iPad.

On Independence Day 2012 dealnews recorded the highest per cent of overall traffic coming from mobile devices compared to any summer holiday in 2011 and 2012. On July 4, 2012 mobile traffic accounted for 22.48% of overall site traffic to dealnews, representing a 43% increase compared to the average mobile traffic percentage of the previous three respective weekdays. The iPad is the preferred mobile shopping device, accounting for 40% of all mobile visits on the holiday compared to 30% and 26% for iPhone and Android devices, respectively.

“Smartphones and tablets are increasingly considered a preferred platform for online shopping for a growing number of people,” said Dan de Grandpre, CEO of dealnews. “Since more people are shopping from their mobile devices now than ever before, it’s imperative that retailers and merchants invest in dedicated mobile sites to improve consumers’ mobile shopping experience.”

Make way for Android's Jelly Bean

Android will be the dominant OS in the second half of 2012, accounting for 70% of the total handset market up from 60% in the first half. Although Fridays Samsung Apple decision may reduce numbers especially if Samsung are prevented from selling their Android-based handsets in the US.

Digitimes Research estimates the increase will be fired by several major Android handset vendors including Samsung, Huawei and ZTE pumping up their shipments in the third quarter, while second-tier vendors, regional brand vendors, and white-box players are also aggressively launching new entry-level Android-based handsets particularly in the Chinese market, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst Luke Lin.

The research estimates that Apple’s iPhone shipments will surpass 125 million units in 2012, and handsets based on BlackBerry and Symbian operating systems are expected to see further shipment declines in 2012, dropping by 40% and 65%, respectively.

OS sales for 2H2012

The Windows market is set for an increase spurred on by the aggressive promotion of Lumia Windows Phones, and the new Windows 8 devices. Digitimes Research estimates that overall shipments of Windows Phone-devices in 2012 will reach 21 million units, up more than double on the previous year.

Users can now share webpages directly to Google+, Facebook and Twitter as well as email. The update follows a Google+ release for iPhone and iPad that added the ability to open links directly in Chrome from iOS, which gets around Apple’s desire to make Safari the default destination for URL links.

The update puts Chrome ahead of Safari for iOS which currently only allows users to share via Twitter or email, Facebook integration is on its way with iOS 6.

Chrome for iOS for iPad and iPhone is available on iTunes

Figures from ABI show the April to June quarter of 2012 set a new record for media tablet shipments reaching nearly 25 million units with total shipments growing 36% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and 77% year-over-year (YoY).

Apple iPad shipments represented nearly 69% of worldwide volumes for the period, with Samsung trailing in second place with 8.1% of the market and ASUS (4.0%).  Unfortunately for RIM it’s policy of drastic price cutting on the Playbook has failed to have any success, with the Canadian company experiencing the most significant decline with just 1% of the market.

Apple ship 17 million iPads in Q2

“Most impressive about Apple’s 17.0 million tablet shipments in 2Q’2012 was it nearly matched 2010 total worldwide shipments of 17.3 million for all vendors,” says Jeff Orr, senior practice director for mobile devices.

Apple representatives noted that nearly 1 million of its iPad 2 devices were shipped to US education customers during the period, which contributed to the company’s growth but also its continuing average selling price (ASP) decline.  ABI Research estimates a 4% drop in ASP for the company QoQ and nearly 19% YoY.

Despite shipment restrictions imposed on Samsung, the Korean manufacturer maintained its second-place share for 2Q’2012, followed by Amazon and ASUS.

New vendors and products are entering the fray during the second half of the year, including tablets from Google and Microsoft.  ABI Research expects the new products to impact share – both positively from Google Nexus 7 and negatively from Microsoft’s Surface tablets – of Google’s Android OS used on most tablet models.  “The tablet market is on track for 102 to 110 million shipments worldwide for full-year 2012,” adds Orr.

3G tablet sales slow as recession hits

Interestingly, the majority of tablet shipments are now Wi-Fi only. In 2Q’2012, less than 27% of new shipments included a mobile broadband (3G/4G) modem module, down 12% YoY. ABI explain the reduction in 3G connected devices is down to, “A more competitive marketplace and consumers looking to keep personal expenses down.”

Facial recognition has been on the technology radar for some time. It was developed in the 1960s by three scientists: Woody Bledsoe, Helen Chan Wolf, and Charles Bisson. Historically, the major challenge for the technology in mobile devices has been incorporating an accurate enough sensor (camera) and a powerful enough processor to undertake the complex algorithms while limiting power consumption. Thanks to major technology advancements, this has changed.

“Facial recognition technology has improved drastically over the last 10 years and accuracy is almost always above 90%,” says ABI Research senior analyst Josh Flood.  “That said, lighting conditions and facial expressions can sometimes cause problems with the recognition. However, the improvements in camera resolution and processing power utilized by mobile devices has helped greatly.”

The technology is already being actively marketed and implemented in smart TVs with the ability to identify the user (watcher) having numerous advantages in this sector. Furthermore, more advanced 3D cameras that are larger than the 2D cameras typically used in mobile devices can be used, while power consumption is not such a critical factor either. Nevertheless, ABI Research projects a steady adoption of the technology in mobile devices and numerous mobile device application processor makers have begun drawing plans and benefits for the technology.

Currently, only Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean mobile operating systems support the technology in significant volumes. The Samsung Galaxy SIII is one of the most notable smartphones to feature this technology. Over the next two to three years, many more operating systems and mobile OEMs will incorporate the technology.

UTalkMarketing and online survey platform Toluna Quick surveyed 1300 UK consumers and found that a staggering 32% of 18 to 34 year olds plan to use their mobile device to purchase gifts in the run up to the festive season.

But it’s not just the youth market that’s looking to buy their Christmas goodies on their mobile. Older age groups too are making an increasing number of purchases via their mobile – 14% of those aged between 35 and 54, and 9% of over 55’s also plan to make Christmas purchases this year using their device.

Apple’s iPhone users are the most likely to make a Christmas purchase via their device – 42% of those that say they will make a Christmas purchase via mobile will do using their iPhone. Some 31% of those that say they will make a Christmas purchase via their mobile will use their Blackberry and a further 27% will do so via an Android device.

But retailers will need to have a mobile app in place if they want a slice of the now lucrative mobile shopper market. An overwhelming 88% of mobile shoppers will only make a purchase this Christmas if their retailer of choice has ‘an app for that’. Only 12% of mobile shoppers will make a purchase directly from a retailer’s mobile-optimised website.

The main concern of those that won’t use their mobile device to make purchases this Christmas is the issue of privacy – 26% of those that said they would not use their mobile device to make purchases said it is because they have privacy concerns related to entering banking details into their device.

Digital Staircase is the latest in a series of mobile startups acquired by Facebook this year. The first acquisition was group messaging services firm Beluga, then mobile app platform provider Snaptu, followed by mobile ad solutions developer Rel8tion.

Confirmation of the deal for an undisclosed sum came on their blog.

“As with any startup, there have been ups and downs, but we’ve always had a blast working with you all to create new graphics apps and tools that make the joy of visual computing accessible,” the firm writes. “We’re announcing today that we’re joining Facebook, where we’ll help to bring these kind of mobile innovations to a broader audience.”

The blog also adds that they will be ceasing the distribution of their current apps from Apple’s App Store, and their “new innovations” will be  added to Facebook. Although they don’t say when and to what.  The good news is that if you’re a user of one of their current apps then you can continue to use them.

Will there be another purchase? Or is this it for the year?

The Research2guidance (R2G) research shows that while there are tens of thousands of new Android apps appearing, there are an equally significant number of apps disappearing in regular purges.

In Q3 of 2011, the number of active mobile applications in the Android Market stood at 319,161 compared to 459,589 in Apple App store. However R2G believe that the Android market is bigger than it looks. Delving deeper R2G found that Android developers are significantly more productive than Apple’s. The average publisher on Android has placed more than 6 applications in the Market since launch, compared to just over 4 apps on average that have been published by iOS developers.

The actual total number of applications published on the Android Market leapt to over 500,000 in September 2011. In the meantime, the Apple App Store stands at just over 600,000 successful submissions: just 20% more. The issue is that over 37% of the applications published were later removed from the Android Market for various reasons, whereas the Apple App Store has removed just 24% of published apps in comparison, as of the end of September.

Although Apple is known to regularly clean up its store from inappropriate or outdated content, its active application share still exceeds that of Android. It is likely that the more rigid application submission requirements prevent developers from publishing multiple trial or low quality applications whereas publishers in the Android Market place a lot of market testing, trials, and demos. Over 78% of the apps removed from the Android Market were free, which could mean that publishers put more effort into the applications they place with the pay-per-download business model, thus ensuring that it is kept longer in store.

R2G also have some interesting figures about the Windows Phone 7 market. The share of deactivated apps in the WP7 Marketplace today stands at just 13%. However, one has to bear in mind that it is a comparably young store and many publishers are still exploring its potential. Fifteen months after its launch (comparable to the WP7 store now), the Android Market similarly had 86% of its apps active and a significant application store clean-up didn’t get started until the end of 2010.

UK Internet users are spending a phenomenal time watching video, and it’s a trend that’s going up rather than down, and while this isn’t strictly a mobile story, we’re convinced that video is becoming a driving factor behind the uptake in mobile. Additionally the mobile operators are starting to embrace video as another way of increasing revenue, Three announced last week that it intends to allow users to subscribe to ITV’s video on demand service for an additional £5 per month. The new service, provided in association with the On Demand Group (ODG), will permit subscribers to access ITV content that can be viewed in “catch-up” mode.

Analysts Hitwise’s latest Internet survey, “Online Video: Bringing Social Media to Life” shows UK Internet users are spending 240 million hours every month watching online video content.

In September 2011 four percent of all UK Internet visits in September 2011 went to a video website, making online video more popular than both the Travel and Sports categories. Whilst viewing video content online might have been an activity of the elite early adopters a few years ago, the transition of video from niche to mainstream media now means that 86% of the UK online population visits a video website at least once per month. The average Internet user makes 18 visits to video websites per month.

In September 2011, the UK Internet population made over 785 million visits to online video websites – an increase of 36% year-on-year. Not suprisingly the majority of growth in this space has been driven by YouTube, now the third most popular website in the UK after Google UK and Facebook. YouTube dominates with 70% of all visits to online video sites. Every month, UK Internet users spend 184 million hours watching YouTube content, with an average session time of 20 minutes.

Ranking second and third are the video-on-demand (VOD) services from BBC iPlayer and ITV Player, which now represent a significant percentage of overall internet visits to video sites. Niche sites have also seen a huge increase in traffic, including videozer (+853%), MSN Video (+913%) and Hulu (+123%).

According to Hitwise a big part of YouTube’s success is thanks to the uptake of video content consumed on mobile devices. Since January 2010 UK Internet visits to YouTube mobile have quadrupled, with a doubling of visits in 2011 alone.

Currently 1 in 20 YouTube visits comes from a mobile device used on a home WiFi network and this doesn’t even take into account the millions of videos watched each month using the 3G networks.
Factoring in the visits from mobile devices using 3G connections, Hitwise estimates that smartphones and tablets account for approximately 1 in 10 visits to YouTube; a significant figure considering the huge volume of videos watched on YouTube and the relatively short time that smartphones and tablets have been in mainstream use in the UK.

James Murray, Marketing Research Analyst at Experian Hitwise, said: “There are now more visits to video websites every month than to email providers, travel or sports sites, which represents a huge opportunity to the savvy marketer. The average Internet user will make 18 visits to video sites a month and almost half will visit at least three different sites. While YouTube dominates the market, the increase in traffic to video-on-demand and more niche sites demonstrates that content is what matters most to today’s Internet users and they’ll go to whatever site has the content they’re most interested in.”

Music, TV, films and gaming are the top four search topics that drove consumers to video websites. Music is the biggest driver of traffic, accounting for 33% of search clicks. The majority were looking for music videos, where Lady Gaga was the most searched for artist.
Seventeen per cent of search clicks to online content were for TV-related search terms; specifically EastEnders, Britain’s Got Talent, X-Factor and South Park, while gamers were looking for trailers for new games and walkthrough cheats.