While global PC shipments sounds like they grew a solid 12% year-on-year for 2012 now that Q4 numbers are rolling in, you have to include tablets to arrive at that number. In fact one in every six PCs shipped during Q4 was an iPad. During the Q4 of 2012, Apple secured a 20% share of global PC shipments for the quarter, thanks mostly to strong iPad sales. Q4 numbers without tablets paint a much different picture – worldwide PC shipments without tablets were only 89.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, down 6.4% from the same quarter in 2011.
Principal analyst at Gartner, Mikako Kitagawa, states that tablets have changed the device landscape by becoming an alternative to a PC rather than a complement. And it is in this light where the opportunity for tablet application development comes in. Rather than thinking of tablets as big smartphones, approaching the device as an alternate to a laptop opens several new opportunities for application development.
If you break Apple’s numbers down you can see the impact tablets are having on the market, of the 27 million units Apple shipped, 22.9 million were iPads and 4.1 million were Macs.
Key to developing a strategy to leverage the massive growth of the tablet market is understanding the differences between tablets and other devices. Don’t just plan on your tablet app being a big smart phone app. Take advantage of additional navigational features and the extra screen size. Generally tablet apps preform poorly when that are just enlarged versions of smartphone apps and not optimized for the format. Likewise tablets have much different operating systems than desktops and laptops and its important to take advantage of those differences with your app.
If you look at the fact that tablets are replacing PCs or laptops in many situations and look at the software needs in those situations there are great opportunities for tablet app development to be had. This is different than the approach we have seen from many in the past where they simply try to build bigger versions of iPhone or Android Apps. How can you streamline desktop software into a high-performing iPad app? or Android tablet app? There are many opportunities in this area that savvy businesspeople can take advantage of right now.
Shoppers spent well over $30 billion online over this past holiday season and a large percentage of that was done via mobile devices. Often consumers will finalize online purchases via their desktop or laptop computer, but a rapidly expanding number are using mobile applications or mobile web sites while in-store and those shoppers are driving the future of mobile application commerce.
New surveys from GfKRoper and SapientNitro state that a whopping 80% of smartphone owners used their mobile devices while shopping during the 2012 holiday season. This is very solid growth for mobile shopping when compared to the past.
Other findings from these surveys include: 80% of mobile users accessed mobile applications or websites to research or browse products (15% higher than last year), 74% of mobile users completed at least one purchase via mobile device over the holidays (19% higher than the previous year) and 56% of mobile users looked to customer reviews and ratings to make a purchase decisions (16% higher than last year).
Motorola’s research suggests that younger shoppers are the most likely to use mobile devices for shopping and that only about a third of older consumers use mobile devices to shop. Their survey data indicates some of the reason behind the growth of mobile applications usage for commerce, suggesting that users often feel that they have a better chance of finding reliable information via mobile app or mobile web site than via retail employees.
Recently comScore release survey data that smartphones are now used by 55% of mobile users in Europe and by 52% of people in the United States. This works out to be over 121 million users and about half of those people reported using mobile browsers or downloading apps for a formidable market that is growing on a daily basis.
In a recent study by Tapjoy, they had found mobile commerce is expected to grow by over an astounding 300% by 2015. While many analysts are starting to focus on the upcoming shopping season where many shoppers will brave the crowds at malls and local stores preparing for the holidays, we are seeing big growth in the number number of shoppers who will turn to mobile applications and mobile web sites for holiday shopping this year – or at a minimum they will be engaging in a great deal of mobile research to assist with their shopping. According to the new study from Tapjoy, 1 in 5 apparel buyers currently uses a mobile app or web site at least daily to buy or participate in research.
Some additional findings by Tapjoy point to explosive growth in the mobile marketplace. A full 54% of Tapjoy’s customers shopped via mobile in the previous six months and 45M smartphone users looked into the shopping app category in June of 2012 with almost half of them using these mobile shopping applications. But beyond just the numbers of users, what is powerful is the frequency of use among them with an average user accessing mobile shopping apps 17 times per month. A very solid 64% of those Tapjoy polled said they are going to make mobile purchases at some point during this holiday season.
Looking at the usage patterns of users while utilizing mobile devices and applications, users are comparing prices 61 percent of the time and accessing promotions/coupons 51 percent of the time for the most active areas of usage. We also see shoppers reading reviews, scanning bar codes and taking pictures of products while shopping.
Mobile deals is a big area to keep an eye on, according to the Tapjoy report, mobile shoppers are smart shoppers and they are looking for deals. Most often they look for free shipping deals, but nearly half also look for coupons or promo deals. One item that is good to note if you are currently planning a mobile application for your business is that less than 10 percent of users view mobile product videos, so don’t worry about video content as it isn’t a key factor and it will can eat up bandwidth quickly.
If you utilize these research factors in helping to plan your mobile application it will help you key in on the areas that will be most productive for your business buy helping you match existing usage trends. Clearly given the explosive growth of mobile applications and mobile commerce, you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage if you are not yet taking advantage of this crucial medium of communication.