Tag: emarketer

New report sheds light on the success being seen in mobile commerce

Leading market research firm eMarketer has released a new report concerning the state of the mobile commerce sector. The report highlights various aspects of the mobile commerce space, shedding some light on the factors influencing its growth and the challenges it faces around the world. Mobile commerce has been seeing strong growth over the past two years as consumers become more integrated with mobile technology. The proliferation of smartphones and tablets has exposed consumers to a variety of mobile services that they are showing a great deal of enthusiasm for.

Mobile sales expected to reach $133 billion by 2017

According to the report from eMarketer, mobile commerce now accounts for a sizeable portion of the retail sales being recorded in the U.S. The report estimates that mobile sales will reach $41 billion by the end of 2013, a 68% increase over the level they had been in the previous year. By 2017, the report suggests that mobile sales will balloon to $133 billion. Consumers appear to favor mobile commerce because of the convenience that it represents and it is becoming increasingly common for consumers to use their mobile devices to purchase products even when they are already in physical stores.

Tablets are more popular than smartphones

The report notes that tablets have become more popular for mobile commerce than smartphones. While smartphones may be more plentiful among consumers, tablets offer a better shopping experience. Larger screens offer better navigation capabilities and allow consumers to access sites that may not be optimized for viewing on a smartphone. The report notes that nine in 10 consumers are more willing to make a purchase with their tablet than with their smartphones.

Challenges could derail the momentum behind mobile commerce

Mobile commerce does, of course, face significant challenges that could become quite serious in the years to come. Security is expected to remain one of the most problematic issues that faces the mobile commerce sector. Poor infrastructure is also expected to reduce the popularity of mobile payments as consumers run into problems that prevent them from making a purchase with their mobile device.

During the first half of this year, digital ad spending has spiked when compared to last year.

The latest estimates regarding digital ad spending and mobile marketing for the first half of the year have now been released by Kantar Media, and they have shown that the figures have grown considerably over last year at the same time.

The total ad spend in the United States increased 2.0 percent across the market, year over year.

However, eMarketer also pointed out on Monday that “But Q2 2013 was notable for an even faster rate of increase, at 3.5% over Q2 2012”. This included the figures for not only mobile marketing, but all online advertising spending.

In the first half of 2013, the mobile marketing spending increased notably.

The report also indicated that beyond mobile marketing, digital display ads experienced an increase of 5.3 percent over the first half of the year. However, it is important to note that this particular statistic does not include those displayed over smartphones and tablets, and does not include the results that were seen over video.

Video and mobile marketing are the two areas in which the largest increases in investment have been recorded. In fact, it is indicated that the growth for each of those individual digital spending areas rose by a great deal more than the figure recorded for the increases in display only.

It did not come as much of a surprise to the authors of the report that retail remained in the lead of the spending for mobile marketing and digital ad spending. However, the overall digital ad growth (not including video and smartphone and tablet ads) in the second quarter of this year was quite small compared to a year beforehand, landing at only 0.1 percent growth this year.

The report added that the fastest rate of increase was in the telecom industry, where there was a rise of 19.5 percent. Insurance and restaurants were also seen as rapid growth categories for mobile marketing as well as digital ad spending, as they each achieved overall increases in spending in the double digit percentages. It was estimated by eMarketer that the total overall ad spending in the United States will see a growth of 3.6 percent in 2013.