Transition to smartphones comes with skews: Report
The rapid transition to smartphones in Asia Pacific appears to be limited to specific categories in some markets, and shows varying trends in others, creating newer sets of challenges and opportunities. As per the Q3 State of Mobile Advertising study from Opera Mediaworks, done in collaboration with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), a clear trend is that about half of the mobile user base has moved to smartphones. This trend is true even in markets where the transition from feature phones to smartphones has been slower such as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Android rules in Asia but not in Pacific
A study of mobile users on Opera’s global mobile-ad platform in six select APAC countries found that Android is the leading OS for smartphones, with 67.1 per cent of impressions being served to those mobile devices (and 30.4 per cent to ‘other’ or feature phones). In Australia, however, the opposite trend has surfaced: iOS dominates with a 68.5 per cent market share compared to Android’s 30.7 per cent and feature phones on less than 1 per cent.
“The ability to serve high-impact, and therefore high-value, rich-media and video ads on smartphones is what is truly powering the monetisation potential of the region. These ad types are effective at attracting, engaging and ultimately converting mobile consumers, so, in markets like Australia, where we see a high ratio of video impressions, brand advertisers are seeing strong results from their rich-media campaigns,” observes Vikas Gulati, Managing Director for Asia, Opera Mediaworks.
The key findings from the study of the APAC ‘P6′, which includes markets such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – plus Australia show several interesting trends for marketers to consider.
India leads the region in overall revenue and traffic
India leads the region in overall revenue and traffic, accounting for more than half (53 per cent) of impressions. It falls lower, however, in terms of monetisation potential, due to the
relatively high (25 per cent ) share of feature phones. Still, compared to other feature-phone dominated markets, its share of revenue is equitable to that of impressions, indicating a
relatively strong monetisation model on ‘other’ platforms.
The study also shows that mobile video ad formats command higher eCPMs than rich-media display and even native ads in nearly all of the countries in the study.
Mobile stores, social media & carrier portals
Mapping content trends by country, Opera Mediaworks and the MMA found that while each
country demonstrates a unique profile in terms of audience interests, there were some patterns:
• Mobile stores and carrier portals are the most popular category in most of the countries,
the result of feature-phone owners needing to access content and apps through these
channels. In fact, 88.5 per cent of unique users to mobile stores and carrier portals are visiting
from feature phones.
• Social networking is the most or second-most popular category for five of the seven
countries. It is noticeably missing from the top three in Australia, which is instead
dominated by Entertainment, Sports and News & Information.
• In three countries (India, the Philippines and Vietnam), nearly 8 in 10 impressions are
served to the top three categories, indicating highly condensed interest areas. Malaysia
and Thailand, on the other hand, show traffic going to a wider set of categories.
Audience behaviour and interests
The study examines four common mobile consumer segments: Savvy Shoppers, High-tech
Enthusiasts, Travelers and Gamers. It found that:
• Gamers have strong preference for iOS, particularly in Australia, where 83 per cent of them use Apple devices. Even in the P6, the preference for iOS is clear, with a 18 per cent share, nearly 7X the P6 average of 2.6 per cent. Cut the Rope is the no. 1 game in nearly every country.
• India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam all contain a strong percentage of Savvy
Shoppers, with such favorite local sites as Tokopedia, OLX, Lelong and Chợ Tốt.
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