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AdMob on iPhone ad impressions and why Andrew Bud is wrong

On 10/07/2009

Mobile advertising firm AdMob has released some numbers on ad impressions on iPhone vs other smart phones and the result is, well, that Apple is basically a 50kg flyweight boxer competing against Sumo wrestlers 5 times it weight (8% smartphone footprint but more than 40% ad impression share).

Now, very (!) crudely put, this does not mean that it is 8 times as successful on mobile advertising. It does mean however that users are 8 times more likely to use applications where ads are being displayed. Here’s some of their stats:

iPhone Apps (in AdMob’s network):

The top iPhone apps had more than one million users in the UK in May 2009
5% of iPhone apps had more than 100,000 active users in May 2009
14% of iPhone apps had between 10,000 – 100,000 active users in May 2009
27% of iPhone apps had between 1,000 – 10,000 active users in May 2009

Mobile web browsing market in May 2009:

UK:

48.7% of ad requests came from Apple handsets (iPhone and iPod Touch)
28.4% of ad requests came from the iPhone
282,493,761 ad requests from users in the UK

US:

45.1% of ad requests came from Apple handsets
25.7% of ad requests came from the iPhone
3,804,373,544 ad requests from users in the US

Global:

31.4% of ad requests came from Apple handsets
18.6% of ad requests came from the iPhone
7,997,946,483 ad requests from users around the world

Interestingly, MEF and MBlox Chairman Andrew Bud (who is being quoted at the end of the article) said that Apple’s app store compared to Nokia’s Ovi Store like a niche boutique to Tesco (or, if you are in the US, Walmart). Is that so? No it is not. And here’s why:

Apple is a boutique with more items on sale than a Tesco megastore. And its (less) customers buy trolleys full of wares. Moreover, their high-spending customers leave the store with a spring in their step and committed to come back the next day.

Nokia is a super-store with gazillion potential (!) customers where 1 in 20 stroll through aisles stocked with not so cool things and most of them walk out without buying anything and, on top of that, feeling fairly downtrodden and frustrated about what was on offer.

So, for the time being, I’d choose the Apple boutique. If that choice changes will depend on whether Nokia will manage to stock their shelves with more compelling wares and improve on their tills (less queuing, more bang for your buck, etc). Oh, and get those cold strip-lights replaced, please!

Vodafone Germany’s “Generation Upload” or the Importance of Walking the Talk

By Volker

On 10/07/2009

In 1

Here’s a tale of the brave new world of the web, the collaborative, open, participatory one. It starts harmlessly. Vodafone Germany did something new: a new image, a new target group, a new PR format… The formal pointer was the full integration of Arcor, which it took over about a year ago.

There was more to it though, on the image side. Now, Vodafone did its homework (or so it thought) and thought of something fairly revolutionary: it announced its new initiative in a “Live PK” where they allowed everyone (!) to contribute comments via web (as they said: “contribute, ask!” (as an aside: PK is to stand for “press conference”; they may have overlooked the fact that the abbreviation is [was?] also used to describe a runny form of stool). Anyhow, lots of puns possible but let’s move on as it would otherwise unduly overshadow the fairly impressive way with which the story unfolds:

Now, a little bit of background:

Vodafone announced in good German their latest campaign aimed at “Generation Upload”. This is, so they tell us in a blog (!) entry, the opposite of the only consuming download generation. Download was yesterday. Now is the Upload folks who “is full of energy”, “do not let themselves be constrained by conventions” and “lets everyone else participate in their excitement”. “It uses communication technologies not as a means in itself” (did anyone ever?) but as “a tool for realizing their own dreams” (or something like that; there was a lot more of PR blurb of course; German version here).

But then it came: “With Vodafone this generation wins a partner that provides the tools for this.”

Ah. Do they now? Well… What was your data tariff? €35 per month you say? Um…

And so disaster struck – somewhat… The invitation to contribute and ask led to 2,100 (!) comments during the press conference alone, way too much to handle of course. Also, it transpired that the Vodafone data pricing might not actually be fully in sync with the message it wanted to communicate, namely that the uploaders are being appropriately embraced by Vodafone (a partner… tools…).

But then came the somewhat revolutionary bit: today, in a blog post (and when did any carrier ever announce something like this via a blog?) they a) admitted having misjudged the whole thing and b) promised to work on their tariff structures: “if we really want to become the partner of the upload generation, then we must provide the respective tools in terms of hardware and rates. We will be measured by this.”

This, for a carrier, is revolutionary indeed. And it is a sign that they might actually have “got it”. The web as it has emerged is a different one, simpler but also infinitely more complex. Be sincere, be transparent, be honest. In the new digital society, attempts to cover mistakes up by misguided PR-BS almost certainly fail. They seem to have understood that. Will they act on it? Ah, brave new world!

Vodafone: hats off to you!!! And now: deliver… 😉

Greg Ballard gets unglu’ed

By Volker

On 09/07/2009

In 1

Now, I am rarely (ever?) writing about personnel changes but this one probably deserves a note: Greg Ballard, Glu Mobile‘s CEO, is stepping down.

Here’s a man (and a company) on whom many in the sector have an opinion: Ballard leaves a lot of burned cash, big losses, huge inflation of license fees offered to rights owners, etc, etc. The comments on some blogs are not all complementary However, this is also the man (and the company) that went from what many perceived as an ailing publisher (back then when they were Sorrent) that bought other ailing publishers (first Macrospace, then iFone), were in the ropes a couple of times (ahead of their IPO, late last year) and yet so far always managed to pull through. And not only that: coming from a contested group of publishers that fought for the #3 behind EA Mobile and Gameloft, Glu now is firmly occupying that spot.

Is it healthy? Not (yet?). Is it all good? Is it to stay? That’s a tough question and I would need to gaze into a crystal ball I do not possess. Glu had started to pull back on cost (anecdotally, they “re-sized” fairly significantly; Hong Kong sea-front office closed, posh London location shrunk, …). As per their CFO, “the company remains committed to being cash flow positive from operations during FY09”. There you have it.

Anyway, I wish Greg well!

Top 10 Mobile Phones in June 2009

By Volker

On 09/07/2009

In 1, Apple, OEM

Here’s our monthly update on the best-selling phones as derived from accessory sales by Swedish company Krusell. They seem to be having a new product line: the iPhone shows up now (and as a “new entry” no less). It is arguably to show the limited value of this table in terms of overall sales.

It is noteworthy that June’s #1 phone (Nokia 6300) is a handset that was introduced to the market more than 2 years ago. Now it is a very solid performer (as my wife will tell you) and has been used as a very good-value phone (£0.00 when bought on a pay-as-you-go) by a lot of carrier. Or is it that the phone is now so shabby it needs to be covered by a plush holster? :p

I thought it is also noteworthy that Nokia’s new flagship the N97 (or any other N-series Nokia) is not featuring at all… It might be early days for the N97 but the others?

Well, make of it what you will, here’s the top 10 list (oh, wait, it’s a top 11 this month; woah):

1. (3) Nokia 6300
2. (-) Apple iphone 3G
3. (-) HTC Touch Diamond 2
4. (2) Nokia 3109
5. (-) Nokia E51
6. (1) Nokia 5800
7. (5) Nokia E71
8. (6) HTC Touch HD
9. (-) HTC Magic
10. (-)HTC Touch Pro2
11. (4) Samsung SGH-i900/i910 Omnia
() = Last month’s position.

AR: the next acronym to watch out for?

By Volker

On 06/07/2009

In 1

AR stands for Augmented Reality and it is one of the dreams of game developers: merge the virtual and real worlds in a game and explore new horizons. This has been a pretty futuristic feature until recently: shown off at trade shows but never really seeing the (commercial) limelight. And even in the brave new world of the iPhone, it doesn’t fly – yet.

A dozen or so AR game developers have now launched an initiative to make Apple allow them to manipulate live video feeds (which they need to in order to run their games). The respective API is currently missing (developers are not allowed to use private APIs under Apple’s publishing guidelines). They threaten to otherwise go to Android. Hmm…

So far, AR games are few and far between and they haven’t really left the scholarly confines of Georgia Tech and other ivory towers, simply because there is no market for them as yet. Many people place their faith for the next big thing in mobile gaming on AR but because the necessary parameters (video feeds eat lots of bandwidth) have not been met, they cannot really capitalize on their wares. Go here for a good overview of the status quo (featuring the Georgia Tech apps and others).

So, is it there yet? I’d like it to but I doubt it: it is not only Apple but – possibly more importantly – the carriers: what do they have to gain if a few people consume a disproportionately high amount of bandwidth to play their games? Very little under the current costing framework of the industry. Little short-term chances I would therefore say… A pity that!

iPhone App Store once again: how much?

By Volker

On 06/07/2009

In 1, Apple, OEM

It is early July and we have not been reading analysts’ estimates on how much Apple may or may not make from application downloads through its app store for at least, what, 2 weeks (here’s a piece from a while ago). High time for another round then… This time, the number is “a few hundred million at best”, per quarter that is. And to be perfectly fair, the number was tagged as a guestimate. With another guestimate putting Apple’s iPhone revenue to $1.5 bn, the revenue per iPhone to Apple is thought to be around $600. Compare this to c. $27 in apps revenue per device (total number of apps divided by total number of devices). It’s 5%.

It is, I think rightly, pointed out that Apple uses applications as a lever for its hardware sales (“there’s an app for that”), and it is undeniable that a device gains more value the more you can do with it. So if you have a device that cannot only make phone calls, take photos (and now video), moonlight as a music player and a sat nav, etc but also finds restaurants, taxis, flight times and undertakers (yes, it does!), allows you to play all sorts of games and do other silly or enlightening things, the perceived value of the device increases and – relative to that – the perceived fair price for it decreases, which means that every little app increases the value of the iPhone a tiny bit, which in turn contributes to another little piece of profit to Apple in addition to its revenue share from the app itself (lowered price sensitivity due to higher perceived value arguably should result in higher sales).

Now this is largely known and acknowledged that Apple is – at least to an extent – replicating the iPod/iTunes model (though Apple also happened to provide the first commercially successful “cure” to free music downloads; hence a slightly different proposition here). But is this all bad?

Let’s have a look at the thing from an app provider’s perspective: if we take the above numbers (“a few hundred million” per quarter), the annual total would be, say $1 bn for Apple, which in return means that the app store “ecosystem” would generate c. $3.3 bn p.a. across the value chain (Apple takes 30% revenue share). That’s not too shabby for a device with such a small market share.

Also: iTunes (which is the world’s largest music retailer) took longer than the app store to generate the downloads it does today, and it is still early days, is it not?

Carnival of the Mobilists # 181

By Volker

On 05/07/2009

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

It’s not yet Monday but the ever-present Andrew Grill who is hosting this week’s edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists on his London Calling blog has it live already. Read it here.

My recent post on the evolution of the model of mobile game aggregators (or mobile content aggregators in general) is featuring as are posts on the mobile Internet and how it differs from that other Internet, (mobile) cloud computing, the future (or no future) of s60 as well as IBM’s Twitter use during the recent Wimbledon tennis tournament. Good stuff. Go, read it!