Oh what a year that was. So much going on, at such breakneck speed, that it was hard, at times, to keep up. What better way to end the year then, than with a round-up of the highlights of the past 12 months in mobile marketing.
We have tried to keep this brief, but with the best part of 2,500 stories to summarise, we apologise if our version of brief doesnt quite tally with the accepted one. But if our roundup helps you get a feel for whats been going on over the past 12 months, in return for just 10 minutes or so of your time, we hope youll forgive us…
January
The first month of 2011 was dominated by Apple, with two pieces of good news, and one bad. The first positive note was the announcement of record first quarter net profits of $6bn (£3.9bn), up from the previous quarter’s $4.31bn.
Apple was also celebrating the 10 billionth app download from the App Store. The magic number was achieved when Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent in the UK downloaded Paper Glider, and walked away with a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card for her trouble. But on a more sombre note, the company also revealed that CEO Steve Jobs was taking medical leave from the company to concentrate on his health – a sad precursor to what would happen later in the year.
Away from Apple, there were a couple of standout stats, as eBay revealed that it had clocked up almost $2bn of mobile sales in 2010, up from just $600m in 2009, and FutureSource Consulting released a report revealing that mobile web traffic had doubled during 2010.
And in the year’s first big deal, mobile data solutions provider Motricity acquired mobile marketing, advertising and analytics solutions provider Adenyo, for an initial consideration of $100m.
February
February was all about acquisitions, as Synchronica bought Neustar’s Instant Messaging (IM) business for $251,000; mobile app development firm Antenna Software snapped up mobile internet software company Volantis Systems; SurfKitchen was acquired by Teleca; and Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) took control of technology, marketing and services company Golden Bytes International, together with its operations in the Netherlands and Belgium.
While not quite an acquisition – yet – the other big news was Nokia’s announcement that it was entering into a strategic partnership with Microsoft, plus the associated restructuring. The jury is still out on how that will end up, though later the same month in his keynote address at Mobile World Congress, Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted to the company’s disappointment that Nokia had opted for Windows Phone 7 over Android, telling delegates: “We would have loved that they had chosen Android, but they chose the other guys. We would like them to choose Android at some point in the future, and the offer remains open. We think Android would have been a good choice for Nokia, and we did try.”
Elsewhere, Google lost the services of AdMob’s first employee Russell Buckley, who seemingly found the big corporate culture, even in a place as funky as Google, not to his liking. He couldn’t stay out of things long, however, fetching up at mobile couponing firm Eagle Eye Solutions just a few weeks after leaving Google.
March
Apple and Google were both in the news in March, Apple launching the iPad 2, and Google admitting that some 260,000 Android phones had been hacked by dodgy apps. There were lots of impressive stats flying round. A report from Berg Insight revealed that smartphone shipments had risen by 74 per cent in 2010, while another, this time from research 2guidance, revealed that paid apps had generated £280m in the UK during the same year.
Meanwhile, O2 Media announced that its O2 More opt-in advertising service had signed up 2m O2 customers, while the annual IAB/PwC study of the UK mobile advertising market revealed that mobile ad spend in the UK had more than doubled in the past 12 months, rising by 116 per cent.
In other news, the Swedish Post Office announced plans for an SMS-based service, in which customers would text in for a unique code, which they would then write on the letter as proof of payment of postage. And the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) denied reports in the Independent newspaper in the UK suggesting that mobile phones could be among a list of items banned from events at the London 2012 Olympics, even going so far as go confirm to Mobile Marketing that spectators would be allowed to take still images and video footage of events on their phones.
April
Staying with the Olympics, a report in the Daily Telegraph claimed there would be no mobile coverage on the London Underground in time for the 2012 Olympics, saying that the UK’s four mobile operators had shelved the scheme because it was impossible to get it ready in time, despite the fact that Chinese telecoms giant Huwaei had offered to provide up to £50m worth of technology as a gift from one Olympic nation to another, representing one third of the estimated £150m cost of the project.
NFC was in the news, with a report from Forrester Research concluding that mass adoption of NFC mobile payments was years away, and another from Juniper Research forecasting that one in five mobile phones would be NFC-enabled by 2014.
A study commissioned by Upstream, and conducted by YouGov, concluded that carriers risk large-scale churn if they overcook their attempts to chase third-party advertising income through opt-in ad programs. Undeterred, Orange UK appointed Blyk to run the media sales program for its Orange Shots opt-in service. 
Another month, another avalanche of upwardly mobile stats. In the UK, newspaper publisher Mail Online announced that mobile traffic to its website had risen from 3 per cent to 11 per cent of the total over the past 12 months, while a study from mobile ad network Hunt Mobile Ads identified a year-on-year increase in mobile traffic of 156 per cent in Latin America. And a quarterly report produced by Google and the British Retail Consortium revealed that traffic generated by mobile search for retail products had grown by 181 per cent year-on-year between Q1 2010 and Q1 2011. Also on the stats front, Facebook announced that it had clocked up 250m mobile users, and finally, UK budget hotel chain Premier Inn revealed that its mobile app had generated revenues of over £1m in just three months since launching in January 2011.
Two other bits of business: Buongiorno bought mobile content and entertainment firm Dada.net for €28.5m (£25m), and Nokia confirmed that it was handing over software development for its Symbian platform to Accenture, along with plans to reduce its global workforce by around 4,000 employees by the end of 2012. Ouch.
May
In May, it was all about money, as a study from Simon-Kucher & Partners revealed that 76 per cent of Generation Y consumers (18-26 year olds) would be willing to use mobile banking services, and considered a monthly fee of £5 a fair price to pay. Meanwhile, data from comScore’s MobiLens service found that the number of European smartphone users engaged in mobile banking had risen by 40 per cent since August 2010.
Still on the subject of money, Orange and Barclaycard launched their Quick Tap, NFC-based, contactless mobile payments services in the UK, though they have been pretty quiet about it since. In the US, Google announced the summer launch of its Google Wallet NFC mobile payments app. And mobile ad network InMobi made its move into the mobile payments space with the launch of its SmartPay, performance-based global, mobile payments solution.
All of which made sense in the light of research from eDigitalResearch and eBusiness consultancy Portaltech that revealed that half of all smartphone users use their device to shop. This was a stat that Domino’s Pizza would definitely concur with, as it announced that it had clocked up sales of over £10m through its mobile channels in just eight months. And further credence was given to the concept of mobile payments with the news that Comic Relief 2011 had raised £15.2m via £1, £5 and £10 text donations, representing more than 20 per cent of the overall £74.3 m raised at the time the announcement was made.
Finally, staying with the money theme, Microsoft announced that it was buying Skype for $8.5bn.
June
Nokia was back in the news in June, as CEO Stephen Elop revealed that the company chose to partner with Microsoft because it didnt want to “give in” to the surge towards Android. Later the same month, Nokia offloaded its Operator Branded Messaging (OBM) business, which provides white-label mobile email and Instant Messaging (IM) services to operators in N. America, to Synchronica. Meanwhile, BlackBerry-maker RIM had its own problems to worry about, as it missed its first quarter profit target, and announced job cuts. On a brighter note, almost inevitably, Apple unveiled the latest version of its mobile Operating System, iOS5, to the usual fanfare.
mCommerce was also in the news, as the UK’s main mobile operators – with the notable exception of 3 – announced plans to create a standalone mCommerce joint venture to enable the rapid development and delivery of new mobile marketing and payment services.
Staying with mCommerce, Pizza Express said it would offer free wi-fi in all of its 384 UK restaurants, then soon afterwards, launched an iPhone app that enables diners to pay for their meal through the app, at any point during the meal. Meanwhile, mCommerce trailblazer Marks & Spencer revealed that it had taken a £5,156 order for kitchen units on its mobile site, trumping the previous largest mobile order of £3,280, for two sofas. And Google unveiled its attempt to mobilise the long tail, with the launch of Google Sites Mobile Landing Pages (aka Mobilize), which helps small and medium-sized businesses to create a mobile landing page in a few easy steps.
July
The good news continued into July, as Betfair reported that it had taken £1bn in bets via the mobile channel in its last financial year. Apple celebrated the 15 billionth download from the App Store, so two and a half years for the first 10bn, six months for the next 5bn… The company also did its usual trick of recording record third quarter profits, of $7.31bn.
The analyst, Chetan Sharma, forecast mobile revenues of $1.3 trillion for 2011, with data making up 24 per cent of the total, while comScore revealed that 42 per cent of UK consumers were using a smartphone, compared to 27 per cent a year earlier.
But amidst the good news, a couple of notes of caution too, both from the analyst, YouGov, which released two reports. The first concluded that, in fact, UK smartphone ownership was stalling, with 35 per cent of adults using a smartphone, only a small increase on the 33 per cent recorded in the previous quarter. The second revealed that these smartphone owners find mobile advertising, for the most part, intrusive, and tend to ignore it. 79 per cent of respondents said they thought mobile ads are intrusive. 88 per cent of respondents said they ignore ads in applications, while 86 per cent ignore them on the mobile web. Both studies were based on responses from 2,082 smartphone owners from YouGovs quarterly Smartphone, Mobile Internet, eXperience tracker (SMIX).
The extent of the problems at RIM were also revealed, as it confirmed that it would be shedding 2,000 jobs, or 10 per cent of its workforce. On a more positive note, Tesco followed Pizza Express’ lead in offering free wi-fi in its stores, though on a more pilot-like basis, trialling the idea in four stores initially. And mobile Demand Side Platform StrikeAd teamed up with Admeld, which helps online publishers sell ad inventory, to bring Real Time Bidding to the UK’s mobile advertising market.
Two deals of note: self-styled personal media company Tigerspike secured an $11m investment from Aegis Media, and eBay splashed $240m on the purchase of Zong, which provides payments through mobile carrier billing.
August
August
