Special Report, Part Two: Mobile World Congress & The Mobile Consumer - Dan Hodges

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There were a record 70,000 people attending Mobile World Congress this past week. MWC is a gathering of operators and the ecosystem players supporting them, including handset manufacturers, equipment manufacturers and software and services providers.

In a much bigger sense, MWC is a snapshot of the most dramatic inflection point and disruptive event in human history. The mobile wave is washing over the entire world, and by 2018 ninety-two percent of the world will be covered by mobile. Nokia says, "all you need is a phone number and a mobile device to participate in the information economy."

Here are some of the highlights from Mobile World Congress.

The Mobile Consumer - "Getting to the Future Fastest"

75% of mobile users do something other than talk on their phones, according to Ericsson.

Keith Weed, CMO of Unilever says they think of reaching consumers by surrounding them with brand messages on multiple platforms. Mobile offers brands the ability to reach consumers on a 365-day basis. Unilever is working "to get to the future the fastest," according to Mr. Weed.

Mondelez, the parent company of Kraft, is allocating ten percent of their global advertising budget to mobile.

Brands, such as Walgreens, have integrated uploading consumer's pictures into their app so consumers can send photos directly from their smartphone to Walgreens for printing.

IHG is using mobile to book millions of dollars of hotel rooms and travel packages each month. Mobile is integrated into the entire hotel experience from check-in to checkout.

Four Square expects to see software design advancing in networking devices in the next 18 months. The CEO of Four Square said, "give me your lat/long and I can tell you where people will be in 15 minutes."

Nielsen has a new study, "The Mobile Consumer: A Global Snapshot," which shows that mobile usage tends to increase as smartphone penetration rises, but patterns of behavior can vary greatly from country to country. In China and South Korea, 40% of smartphone users use their phone for shopping. Mobile users in Brazil, China, India, and Russia are receptive to mobile advertising. The U.S. Latino consumer significantly leads in all mobile usage categories

Factors for Growth

What is needed to drive growth by consumers and business?

1. Spectrum - Government needs to efficiently allocate spectrum to companies.

2. Capital - Massive capital outlays, to prepare for a global connected world

3. Tax Policy - Tax policy needs to reward the massive capital investment needed to build mobile networks.

4. Regulatory Environment - needs to be responsive to a rapidly changing technical environment

The Mobile Road Map & What's Ahead

Qualcomm is the largest mobile phone chipmaker and Telefonica, a large global operator, offered a clear view of the mobile innovation road map and what is coming next.

- Ultrathin displays that can be folded

- App- cesories that you can wear (Google glasses)

- The Internet of autos

- Robots and drones

- Qualcomm Life - connecting devices for a better life

- LTE Broadcast - providing operators with innovative video streaming for subscribers.

- Gimbal- which uses sensors, such as geofencing, relevance, communications in a privacy compliant manner; they demonstrated the use of Gimbal technology for the opening of the Star Trek movie, this summer.

What are the Opportunities for your Brands?

The mobile smartphone consumer is innovating, establishing new usage patterns and habits at unprecedented rates of change.

If you are not testing and deploying mobile, you are behind the curve.

The mash up of API's, along with content and location targeting outlined by Four Square, offers brands the ability to deliver well timed relevant messages to users on their smartphone.

Lastly, mobile is a distinct platform. Successful marketers understand this and are using it to engage consumers, connecting their brands with consumer's lives.

Read Part One of Dan's Special Report: Mobile World Congress & The Mobile Consumer here .

Read Shelly Palmer's thoughts of the Mobile World Congress here .

Dan Hodges is President of ChaCha Search, Inc. Dan can be reached at dan.hodges@chacha.com

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