Telecom Analyst Juniper Research anticipates that revenues from mobile adult services will grow to $4.9 billion by 2013 where Western Europe will remain the largest market with 32%, compared to 11% in North America and 5% in Africa and the Middle East.
So why is Europe so strong when it comes to spending money on mobile adult? First and foremost, Europe has always been very liberal when it comes to adult content. Most of the carriers in Europe even have their own adult sections. Secondly, people can easily and conveniently use mobile phone billing when they want to purchase mobile adult content. They don’t need to enter any credit card information as they would in North America, and this simple ease of use results in much higher conversion rates.
According to European mobile adult program SexGoesMobile.com, average conversion ratios are lower than 1:100 when mobile phone billing is used in specific countries.
Smartphone technology experts believe the US will reach two thirds market penetration for mobile handset/smartphone users by 2015, so it will follow that at least half of those mobile users will participate in mobile eCommerce sales and opportunities in that same year.
As users begin to feel more comfortable using their mobile devices to make product purchases for virtual and physical goods via their handsets, consumer confidence will continue to grow. The current trend shows users taking advantage of mobile devices to research products, compare prices to other retailers and even to make purchases. Consumer confidence is already growing! As more sophisticated technology is built into these devices, such as barcode scanners, intelligent cameras - and location-based applications become more widely used - mobile eCommerce will see huge jumps in sales.
Also, website owners are seeing more and more mobile traffic on their websites these days. Depending on site Google ranking, brand value, etc., this value ranges as high as 10% of all site traffic. The average for mobile traffic is around 3-5%, and a lot of website owners do not yet monetize this traffic, even though it is extremely simple with the right help.
In addition to consumers purchasing physical goods, virtual goods such as social networks, mobile gaming and other mobile entertainment including music, movies, television and video are all on the rise and are expected to continue growing. Just look at the growth in Facebook application and Twitter usage in the past year and you can see where this is headed. As more people move from desktops to laptops to mobile devices, these games and other entertainment venue options will just continue to grow in popularity and revenue.
When you do plan to go mobile, plan it well. If you are advanced in your billing offerings, using different payment options in different regions (e.g. credit card in the US and direct debit in the EU) you should not ignore your mobile EU traffic either. Most US mobile programs just offer credit card billing. Overall EU credit card penetration ranges only to 25% and Europeans are more reluctant to divulge credit card details on mobile handsets, and frankly, don’t want the hassle of it. Make sure you partner with experienced EU players for your mobile traffic as they can convert it better, employ the best methods, and have many more years of mobile eCommerce experience.
Experts believe that by 2015 mobile eCommerce in the US will comprise as much as 8.5% of all US eCommerce revenues and as much as 20% of global eCommerce revenues. So if your company hasn’t looked into mobile opportunities – it’s time to get busy! There are plenty of easy-to-use solutions that will help you to give your customers some very unique mobile options.
Click here to write me if you'd like to know how easy it is to add mobile revenue to your bottom line from your current traffic - if you are already monetizing your smartphone traffic, ask me about monetizing the other 8000 handsets - do you want the extra payouts?
