The news about smartphone penetration continues to be incredible. Adoption rates continue to climb and more importantly, your key customer targets, people between the ages of 18-44 are using smartphones more than ever. They’re using them to socialize with friends and family via Facebook and Twitter. They’re shopping with one click and scanning barcodes to help them decide the cheapest place to get that new flat screen television. Despite the fact that the word “phone” is in the word “smartphone,” it almost feels like less and less people are concerned with the actual phone part. They’re more concerned with how the phone can help them reach their daily needs of socializing, reading, educating, and shopping. Ask yourself, what is your business doing to help these customers? What are you doing to help reach them?
Nielsen’s third quarter survey of mobile users reveals that while only 43 percent of all US mobile phone subscribers own a smartphone. Of this 43%, the vast majority of users are under the age of 44. In fact 62 percent of mobile adults aged 25-34 report owning smartphones. And among those 18-24 and 35-44 years old the smartphone penetration rate is hovering near 54 percent.
As a smartphone owner, my behavior has become more and more mobile and my tolerance for non-mobile sites is near zero. When I compare my experience on a mobile site versus my experience with a site’s mobile app – the experience with the app almost always outshines the experience on the mobile site. Does your company or business have an app for your service or good? Approximately 30 million apps are downloaded worldwide every day. This should be a big clue that mobile apps are something you should investigate and see how you can make one work for your business.
Your ability to connect and stay relevant to your customers and prospects is changing rapidly. Are you keeping up?