Marketers and advertisers have a new way to reach mobile audiences, courtesy of another emerging market trend credited to the Apple iPhone – the debut of the iPhone Apps store.
According to recent research from In-Stat, more than 100 million apps store compatible mobile phones from multiple manufacturers are forecasted to be shipped within five years. In addition to providing numerous platforms for branded applications, they represent a "rapidly growing market" for mobile advertising and marketing.
"With greater capabilities in both running native applications and viewing ‘real Internet’ websites, smart phones have increased usage and user expectations for mobile content", said In-Stat analyst David Chamberlain, in a press release. "Along with the expanding handset base, users are downloading more applications. Reach for marketing applications is growing rapidly and those applications can provide prolonged engagement with the user and keep the advertiser’s brand in focus."
The research, called ‘The Apps Store is Born: Smart Phones Enable New Marketing and Advertising Opportunities Worldwide’, also found that:
• Smart phones having a strong app store orientation will reach 30% of the global smart phone market by 2013, approaching nearly 100 million units.
• Survey respondents show that iPhone users are by far the most active apps store users, significantly outpacing users of Blackberry, Palm OS or Windows Mobile phones.
• But application marketing, like all new advertising media, currently lacks consistent, accepted analytics that many advertisers are accustomed to.
For more on the research, click here.
