Category: Featured News

Mcommerce from iOS devices makes up one third of revenues at iTunes

| January 15, 2013

mcommerce ios itunesApple devices are maintaining their integral role in the sales from the company’s digital goods store.

A new report has just been released by Horace Dediu, an analyst at Asymco, which has illustrated the importance of the role that Apple devices continue to play in the profitability of the iTunes mcommerce digital products store.

The report indicated that iPhone, iPod, and iPad users are still heavy buyers of digital products.

In fact, the statistics that were outlined in the report showed that iOS apps are currently driving one third of the revenue that is being enjoyed by iTunes, and this isn’t showing any indication of changing, for the moment. The research that the analyst performed also indicated a number of other fascinating mcommerce trends.

The iTunes mcommerce experience has continued to thrive as iOS device shoppers head back for more

Among the other findings of the report include the following:

• The gross revenues that have been achieved by the iTunes marketplace have reached an estimated $12 billion per year.
• Over a period of the last five years, owners of both media and apps have generated a total of approximately $24 billion.
• For the aforementioned $24 billion in sales, Apple spent around $10 billion in order to generate them.
• When taken into consideration as a retail business, it costs approximately $3.5 billion per year to operate the iTunes store. This amount includes the costs associated with merchandising, payment processing, as well as any “shipping & handling” expenses.
• Over the last four years, the total revenues at iTunes have experienced a steady rise, at an estimated compounded 32 to 38 percent.
• Although media other than apps still represents around two thirds of iTunes in terms of the annual sales value, the growth rate that this area is experiencing is at 28 percent, while the growth rate for apps is currently at 50 percent.

This annual mcommerce data provides a clearer understanding of the current state of iTunes and helps to suggest some of the directions that it may choose to take as 2013 continues to progress forward.

QR codes can be harmful when precautions aren’t taken

| January 15, 2013

qr codes cautionMobile marketers love these barcodes , but as consumers embrace them, unscrupulous efforts grow.

It’s difficult to open a magazine or a flyer, these days, without seeing QR codes in all of the adds, but just as their popularity grows, so does their attractiveness to unethical individuals who would take advantage of this opportunity to cause harm.

These little black and white codes may look simple enough, but they may now pose an underlying threat.

It took quite a while for consumers to start to feel the enthusiasm for QR codes that mobile marketers have felt from the start. This has meant that individuals who would seek to use them for harmful purposes have left them alone for quite some time. But as the scanning trend continues to grow, so have the hazards associated with the activity.

Malicious QR codes have started to pop up here and there now that the technology has become commonplace.

Though it is still rare for malicious QR codes to appear, they have started showing up on occasion, and their impact can be quite damaging. This is because there are far more mobile device users that have barcode scanners than there are those who have protection against the type of attack that a tainted scan could present.

QR codes are meant to make it easy to redirect a device user to an app or a website to provide information, generate a download, view a video, or even to help buy a product or make a charitable donation. However, when a permissive reader app has been used, even a seemingly harmless scan could place the user’s privacy at risk.

The most common strategy that is used in order to encourage malicious barcode scans is simply to place a sticker with the harmful code overtop of the legitimate square. Therefore, one of the best efforts that a device user can make to protect his or her security is simply to double check that the QR codes they scan are printed directly onto materials from companies that they trust, and aren’t printed onto a sticker. Downloading a scanner app with built in protection is also a highly recommended activity.