Category: Mobile Commerce

Blinkbox sees business from mobile platforms spike

Blinkbox, a video-on-demand service based in the United Kingdom, has reported that its sales through mobile devices from November to December 2012 jumped 180%. The service is very similar to that of Netflix, but more accommodating to mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets. In the United Kingdom, Blinkbox has become a very popular service for mobile consumers, many of whom use the service to watch videos while they are traveling or away from home for any extended period of time.

Tablets and game consoles lead to surge in sales

Blinkbox notes that the surge in mobile sales it has seen recently come from a mix of devices, including smart phones, tablets, and game consoles. While the company attributes a significant amount of success to its appeal to smart phone owners, Blinkbox notes that its recent surge is largely due to the rising availability of tablets and game consoles.

Blinkbox able to beat out competitors

During the 2012 holiday season, Blinkbox saw a major influx of new customers. This is likely due to the fact that many people got tablets and new gaming consoles during this time of year as presents. Blinkbox had also instituted several innovative incentives to help attract new users, many of which were greatly successful. The company notes that was able to beat out competitors because it offered access to many of the most recent movies to be released, whereas Netflix users would have to wait months before gaining access to these titles.

Initiatives prove successful for Blinkbox

Last year, Blinkbox launched the Movie Mondays initiative, which gives users a chance to purchase on-demand videos at a significantly lower rate than usual. Blinkbox has recently announced its partnership with Papa John’s Pizza, which will be providing a large pizza at the same rate as Movie Monday videos. This is another incentive designed to attract new customers, as well as retain those that Blinkbox has already managed to capture.

Apple 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.