Mobile

Vodafone has introduced a new service which takes advantage of popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The chief executive of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao is hoping that the Vodafone 360 service will help to compete for the numbers of British customers that use O2. Out of all other companies, O2 is one such company that possesses the exclusive UK rights of Apple’s iPhone. This is all set to change though in the near future as other networks have brokered deals with Apple for the rights to sell the iPhone.

He continued to say that Vodafone lost 159,000 British customers because of the iPhone in three months. Currently Vodafone sells the iPhone in 11 countries apart from the large European countries.

Vodafone 360 will be made available by Christmas on six handsets in eight countries. This will be the first move by Vodafone to fight back against the iPhone.

Mr. Colao said that the mobile internet data service formed 10pc of the company’s revenue in the market and is hoping that Vodafone 360 will boost profits further.

He said that Vodafone 360 is about organising life, finding friends and making conversations systematically. The service will allow you to store the contacts of friends from Twitter, Facebook and other such social networking sites all in one place.

The analyst of CCS Insight, Shaun Collins said that Vodafone is trying to seize the initiative back from Google, Nokia and others in the share for mobile internet services. The challenge of Vodafone is to offer customers with something more convincing to be on top in this cramped market.

With the increase in the number of mobile phone users, it has appeared that a significant number of people use their mobile phones to access online news and other related content. According to Forrester Research blog, the latest results from two important web portals show up the popularity of accessing information using this method.

People.com generates around 18 million mobile page views every month whereas Weather.com boasts nearly 12.5 million unique visitors on its mobile phone site. These figures clearly indicate that mobile marketing can greatly help companies to reach a wider audience base.

With mobile phone technology constantly improving, Forrester Research’s Neil Strother pointed out that as time goes by, more and more people will surely access online news and other related information services. He also listed ESPN (6.7 million) and Yahoo! (34 million unique visits every month) as examples of sites that are regularly accessed by consumers using their mobile phones.

According to a research conducted by the Mobile Marketing Association in the past month, nearly three quarters of mobile phone users in the UK suggested that they welcome mobile marketing that can offer something in return. Thus, with the increase in mobile internet usage, mobile marketing can greatly benefit companies in marketing their products and services.

Yahoo is launching Yahoo! Mobile. A feature many companies may be interested in if they are looking to introduce search engine marketing and internet marketing to mobile users.

Some 300 devices all over the world can access the mobile starting point on the mobile web. It is also available as an application in Apple iPhone.

The mobile users of eight countries can use this feature. It is meant for HTML-enabled mobile browsers.

The tool, Yahoo! Mobile, permits the user to personalise their internet experience. This can be done by adding the favourite content and services of the user.

Senior vice-president at Yahoo! Mobile, David Ko, explained the service and said that the consumers can discover the whole world revolving around them.

He even said that this starting point can be very beneficial to the consumer as they can connect themselves to a number of communication services. The customers of Yahoo! Mobile can also customise their internet experience through the mobile devices.

In a survey done by comScore, it proves that 80 per cent of Apple iPhone users have already logged on through the mobile browser to access various information and news. The statistics is in comparison to smartphone users who are in the percentage of forty-eight.

According to a data release by an online research company for the month of February, the United States has knocked the United Kingdom from the number one spot on the list of countries with the most mobile web use. The United States now accounts for 29 percent of the total mobile web browsing traffic in the world.

The report also said that the traffic growth in mobile web browsing is matched with a corresponding increase in the number of users using the mobile web to pay for content. This can be attributed in part to the massive publicity behind the Apple iPhone, as well as the improvements in payment experiences that has encouraged more people to purchase mobile content.

Although the usage of mobile web is fast growing, the massive increase in mobile browsing has surprised many businesses. The report also noted that a vast majority of companies around the world still do not have mobile websites.

Statistics in the release show that not all countries which have high instances of mobile browsing account for high purchases. In fact, out of the countries featuring in the top ten for browsing, only five actually figure in the top ten for payments – USA, UK, Portugal, South Africa and Spain.

A recently conducted survey of online shoppers stated that almost one third of online shoppers considered their mobile phones to be an important part of their shopping trip. Almost 29% of these shoppers had to use their mobile phones before they could decide on their purchase.

When shopping online, these shoppers generally refer to their mobile phones before they visit the website of the retailers. Almost 72% of them use their phones to find out about the product from someone. Around 40% of them prefer sending pictures around of the product they want to purchase in order to get opinions of others.

The survey also stated that both the mobile-enabled and non-mobile-enabled shoppers behaved in the same manner, with the exception of one fact that the mobile-enabled shoppers preferred buying their products offline.

Therefore it is believed that if retailers try to push in a mobile app about their products and websites, it would be convenient for both the customers and the retailer too. Customers will then be able to use this app while comparing prices or reading reviews about the product in a more convenient manner.

This idea is growing in popularity and will be a big leap in technology, especially if retailers jump into this field for the convenience of their shoppers.