Advent Of m-Commerce
Over the past two years m-commerce has quickly risen to become a way of life for a sizable percentage of UK consumers. Mobile marketing is rapidly becoming a necessity for all businesses, rather than an optional extra.
New research from the Internet Advertising Bureau - the trade association for online and mobile advertising - reveals that mobile commerce has already become widely adopted in the UK, with 51% of mobile owners (23 million people) using their device to make payments, redeem coupons or research products and services.
Other headline figures emphasizing the increasing ubiquity of mobile include:
- M-commerce represents only 2% of e-commerce in 2011 but is expected to rise to 7% by 2016
- Morgan Stanley forecasts mobile internet access will overtake desktop PC access by 2014
According to research by consultancy Simpson Carpenter, 27% of people say they have used their mobile to make an online purchase regularly.
What's clear from these studies is that the mobile is fast becoming an integral part of everyday life. However mobile is not replacing old forms of behaviour but complementing the other channels in powerful ways. Hence companies need to find ways to integrate mobile into their existing communications or risk losing out.
