Clarity on Mobile Internet Stats in South Africa

Courtesy of the World Wide Worx: http://www.worldwideworx.com/archives/247.

It seems there has been a lot of debate in the past over Mobile Internet stats in S.A… and now we have a framework for understanding them. Critical, if you think about it… as the usage patterns are very different.

I’m mostly a Tier-3 user…

The Mobile Internet is no longer a mystery in South Africa, after the announcement of a formal framework for defining the use of the Internet on cellphones.

For several years, the question of how many South Africans use the Internet from their cellphones has been veiled in confusion, with claimed numbers ranging from half a million to 15-million.

During the past year, representatives of two of the key players in the debate, World Wide Worx and the South African Mobile Marketing Association, agreed to a formal framework within which they would report the key statistics for Internet usage and access on cellphones.

The framework consist of three tiers, namely:

Tier 1: The WAP Internet (access to WAP gateways, which includes mobile versions of brand sites, mobile versions of traditional and new media publisher sites, downloads of ringtones, games and other content, which may only involve a single link from the phone; the typical user of the WAP Internet is not always aware of using the Internet).

Tier 2: The Mobile Application Internet (usage of “stand-alone” applications on the phone that rely on data feeds, such as Mxit, Gmail, and Maps; the typical user is aware of using data, but not of fully accessing the Internet)

Tier 3: Mobile Web Browsing (usage of a web browser to access the World Wide Web from the phone – understood by most users to represent full Internet access)

The framework was developed by World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck and Mobile Marketing Association founding chairman Rick Joubert. It is intended to accommodate the main perspectives that usually emerge in debates around the makeup of the mobile Internet.

“It resolves the dilemma that some appear to hype up the mobile Internet while others appear to underplay it, when in fact everyone is talking about different elements of the mobile Internet,” says Goldstuck.

“Defining the mobile Internet is important,” says Joubert. “Neither one of the mobile Internet usage tiers is any more important than the other, but decision-makers and marketers should understand the nature of the end user experience as clearly as possible.”

According to the Mobile Internet in South Africa 2010 study, released today by World Wide Worx, almost all urban cellular users have WAP-capable phones, and a high proportion have used that WAP capability to access a variety of internet based content on a regular basis, but many without realising they were doing so.

Mobile web browsing is measured directly in the new study, and accounts for 3.36-million users at the end of 2009. The Mobile Application Internet is measured across several applications, including instant messaging, downloadable applications, Internet applications, and e-mail. The Mobile Application Internet user base is estimated at about 9-million.

“This does not mean marketers can target 9-million Internet users via their cellphones,” warns Goldstuck. “They would have to target the individual applications that make up that total, which means that the Mobile Application Internet is not a readily addressable market.”

“The media opportunity represented by the three tiers of the mobile web is quite fragmented and not easy to exploit, but that barrier in itself has presented a fantastic opportunity for early adopter brands who have embraced the medium,” says Joubert. “It has also offered opportunities for aggregators of the medium, such as application stores and advertising networks like AdMob and Buzz City, and for the very large publishers like Mxit, all of whom are able to offer marketers very significant reach.”

The Mobile Internet in SA 2010 study, backed by First National Bank, was conducted face to face among urban cellphone users aged 16 and older, representing 16-million South Africans.

Genius or Gimmick?

Sometimes in life you get a mental smack in the face with cold, wet fish –and this was my experience when reading this latest post regarding The Grid: http://www.vincentmaher.com/?p=946

Bottom line is, in mobile marketing terms, we now looking at being able to market products and services based on mood. Fascinating stuff – and a thought that breeds a whole family of related thoughts, spidering out rapidly and in various directions.

My primary concern here is that of relevancy to the receiver – if the message is relevant, it is awesome. If not, it is nothing short of invasion of privacy. Note that relevant in mobile advertising lingo must mean both requested and relevant.

Campaigns that are targeted at age, sex, location and mood will be a built on planned spontaneity - and fairly easily handled by an I.T system.

Overall - I would say genius.

SportGator

I am a bit of a sports fan, and one of the things I wanted to be able to do from my mobile phone was to get the latest sports news - not the articles - just the headlines, and quickly.

So, I put SportGator together. What it does is aggregate sports news from 2 of the biggest providers, into various categories. (You can filter by clicking on the top or bottom category menus.)

This means I can get updated in under a minute - remembering that this is from my phone. When I want to read full articles, I’ll do so in front of my PC.

The site is still new, so if anyone has any suggestions - like adding another news feed - please let me know!

African Melting pot: SMS, Google and MTN

Some interesting news in the African mobile space – Google have launched a suite of SMS products in Uganda, with the obvious intent of branching out into other African countries.

See: ITWeb and IOL.

The key points of these services are that they are SMS based, and thus compatible with even the most basic cell phone, and that they are information and utility based.

Clever… Google cannot deliver their content over the internet to the majority of rural Africans, so they make use of the most popular and easy to use technology: the SMS.

The application of the technology itself is not new, but it promises to differentiate as it mines Google’s vast information and application reserves. The short codes that you need to SMS in to are also standard rate – and I must say this is great news as I feel premium short codes, especially those in the R5 and above bands, have been way over exploited.

All in all it seems to be a great service, ploughing the benefits of previously inaccessible internet information and facilities into rural communities, who are sure to reap the rewards.

This is a wakeup call to all… the future is mobile. No longer do you need a P.C or even internet access to participate.

Mobile Marketing - It’s about a conversation

Mobile Marketing is something I’m pretty excited about. It’s so simple to see what a powerful part of the future of Marketing it is going to play. Specifically in the South African context, where we have nearly reached mobile user saturation, and where mobile Internet access far exceeds traditional desktop Internet access.

It’s a very flexible channel - there are many mediums available to reach your market, and as long as you can segment it, there is a medium to reach it.

Users with low-end devices can receive and interact with SMS, and even browse menu structures through USSD. The upper end of the market can receive and send multimedia content through MMS, and browse Mobi websites.

Powerfull as it is, the mobile device is a personal device, and this brings about the 2 critical points of relevancy and opt-in.

To communicate with users on their mobiles, they need to have opted-in. You can’t just buy a database and start talking to it. You will irritate consumers who are quick to hold unfavorable associations with your brand. On the other side, you will fall foul of the WASPA regulations.

Relevancy is also key - in our campaigns, the message with the highest relevancy factor produces the highest response rate. Consumers appreciate relevancy to their lives as much as they abhor unsolicited and irrelevant spam.

It’s also important to not only see Mobile Marketing as a way to spam thousands of people with your message in a one to many format. Sure, they will read your message, but there are two things you want from that: you want favourable brand associations to be developed, and you want a conversation to take place. Can your market converse with your message? How do you then respond to that?

This is a critical part of the process, and ties up nicely with the Cluetrain Manifesto. Markets are now conversations - and we want a relationship to be developed.