Symbian’s Mobile Ad Click Through Rate Better than Apple OS

A recent report from Smaato says that Symbian users are more likely to click on mobile ads than Apple iPhone users. The report discusses the click through rates for mobile advertising campaigns in the U.S. for the month of April 2010. It says that the number of clicks generated by the Symbian smartphone platform is 2.7 times more than the number of clicks generated by the iPhone OS.

This statistics might come as a bit of a surprise for many, as most people are under the impression that the Apple iPhone is the undisputed leader of mobile ads. What is even surprising is that Apple is not even in the second position. It is in the fourth place, as feature phones and Windows mobile phones take the second and third place respectively. Google Android suffered nearly a 50% drop in its click through rates during the period of February 2010 to March 2010, which pushed it down to the fifth position. What this means is that no other operating system comes even closer to the click through rates of Symbian, which is backed by the world’s biggest mobile phone maker – Nokia.

The way I see it, this report from Smaato debunks the myth that Apple OS is the holy grail of mobile advertising and Symbian is an aging platform that no one really cares about. While the possibility of Apple reclaiming the top spot cannot be ruled out, it is still interesting to see Symbian performing so much better and exceeding everyone’s expectations.

In the coming months, this competition could only get more intense. Apple is all set to redefine the world of mobile advertising with the iPad and Symbian is all set to release its revamped mobile library – Symbian ˆ3. It should be interesting, don’t you think?

PS: You can download the report from this link.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Nokia, Apple.

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What does Nokia plan to do with Symbian?

Ever since Nokia acquired Symbian and announced that it will be made free of cost, a lot of questions have been raised. The most important question, and the most obvious one too, is the one about the hundreds of millions of dollars that Nokia stands to lose by giving away Symbian free of cost. But then, I’m surprised to notice that a lot of people can’t see the woods for the trees.

Nokia’s plans are very clear. It wants to put Google, Apple, Research In Motion, and Microsoft out of commission by making its open source software the most wanted and the most used mobile software in the world. What this open source software means to developers around the world is that they now have the opportunity to develop as many applications as possible. This will make Symbian handsets more popular than ever.

In my opinion, a lot of developers might prefer Symbian over Apple iPhone or Google Android. The reason is simple. The iPhone, as popular as it may be, is not exactly the market leader. And Google is yet to come up with Android. So, at this situation, developing apps for Symbian, which is the most popular mobile software as of now, sounds really sensible.

If developers around the world started building useful apps for Symbian handsets, it would make Symbian handsets even more popular than what they are right now and the sales will increase exponentially. In other words, Nokia will sell more mobile phones than what it does right now, thanks to this move. And that is exactly what Nokia wants.

Now, it will be interesting to see the reactions of Google, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. Something’s gotta give. Let’s wait and watch.

Categories: Nokia.

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Nokia buys Symbian and poses serious threat to Android

So, Nokia has finally made the big move. It has taken control of Symbian, which in itself is big news, and on top of it has announced that Symbian software will be available for free. Talk about making news…

The open source software – which will be an integration of Symbian, Nokia Series 60, the MOAP platform of Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, the UIQ standard by Motorola and Sony Ericsson – will be controlled by the Symbian Foundation, which is a non-profit organization.

In more ways than one, it looks like the perfect move. After all, Nokia and Psion created Symbian about a decade back and Symbian is still the number one software on smartphones and advanced multimedia handsets. With around 60% market share and an ability to reach over 200 million mobile users, Symbian is undoubtedly the market leader when it comes to mobile phone software. However, things are about to change.

Apple made a splashing entry into the market with its iPhone last year and Google is getting ready to launch its own mobile software, Android. What this means to Symbian, in layman terms, is there’s going to be competition. A lot of it. Especially, Google is hell bent on making Android successful at any cost and it could most likely rattle the dominance of Symbian. So, Nokia has taken the plunge and has made its intentions clear. To retain the number one spot in the market and to stop the dominance of Apple, Google, and to a lesser extent Microsoft and Research In Motion.

Here’s the most important thing about this move. Nokia stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars by making this open source software free of cost. Nokia earns several hundreds of millions every year through software licensing revenues alone and making it an open-source-free-for-all would mean a huge cut in its revenue stream. Still, Nokia has made the move and this has made everyone take notice.

Experts already predict that this move will rattle Google considerably. Google is planning to take the market by storm by offering free, sophisticated mobile phone software in the form of Android and now it will have serious trouble contending with Symbian, which is not only hugely famous and established, but also free of cost.

Well; how many times do I pat my back? I predicted a Nokia vs. Google scenario quite some time back and you can bet your bottom dollar that it has come true. What do you say?

Categories: Google, Nokia.

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Nokia to open Ad Labs to teach mobile marketing techniques

Nokia is planning to open a series of training labs called ‘Ad Labs’ which will teach traditional advertising agencies the art of mobile marketing. Nokia revealed its plans at the Cannes International Advertising Festival 2008. Mike Baker, the VP and the head of mobile advertising in Nokia, said that Nokia’s traditional advertising staff will benefit tremendously from this training and the long time goal is to make them competent enough to create highly targeted mobile marketing campaigns for their clients. To begin with, Nokia will start Ad Labs in Boston and London.

This is a very important move as far as Nokia is concerned. Of late, Nokia has been trying hard for an image makeover – from just a mobile manufacturer to a mobile marketing conglomerate. If you take a look at Nokia’s actions in the recent past, there is a definite pattern. It acquired Enpocket, developed its own mobile internet platform Ovi, it joined hands with France Telecom, and now it’s planning to open Ad Labs for mobile marketing training. Could it get any more obvious? Surprisingly, yours truly predicted a Nokia vs. Google scenario some time back and it seems it might come true after all. What do you say?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Nokia.

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Ready to watch live TV on your Nokia phone?

Monsoon Multimedia, a California based company, has come up with HAVA Mobile Player, digital video service, which has made quite an entry into the market. The video service is interestingly called the ‘sling box killer’, as it is considered a direct competitor to the famous Sling Media.

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA Mobile Player allows you to watch live TV from your mobile phone. Not just that, you will be able to pause, skip, rewind, and schedule your DVR recordings right from your phone. Monsoon Multimedia is confident that people will find it very easy to use this service on their high-end Nokia phones. They also believe that they can outdo Sling Media with this service. However, this service is meant only for S60 Symbian phones as of now whereas Sling Media’s TV service is available on Symbian, Palm, Windows Live Mobile, and it’s rumored that it will be soon available in Blackberry. With this being the case, I don’t think the HAVA Mobile Player is much of a competition for Sling Media, at least as of now.

This mobile TV service will be made available to the public for free next quarter. However, Monsoon is also planning to run a beta program in between.

The way I see it, mobile TV industry is headed for a unique battle. On one hand, you have devices like HAVA Mobile Player which make live TV available in your mobile phone. On the other hand, you have carriers coming up with separate mobile TV service.

Now, as a mobile user, what would you choose? A mobile TV service from a carrier which lets you choose a certain number of channels for a fixed sum every month, or a device like this one which lets you watch live TV right on your mobile phone without any restrictions?

Categories: All things mobile phones, Mobile TV, Nokia.

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