Research

Europeans Love IM, Americans Not So Chatty
According to a new study by comScore Networks, 82 million people – that’s nearly half of the European online population – used IM applications to chat online during February.
Although impressive, Europe’s IM usage is dwarfed by messaging-crazy Latin America, where a massive 64 percent of the online population used IM during the same period.
Unusually, North Americans – a nation of people not exactly noted for their reluctance to chat incessantly – only registered 37 percent of the online population using IM.
Majestic Messenger
MSN Messenger was revealed to be the king of the IM applications, scooping up 61 percent of worldwide IM users.
In Latin America and Europe, Messenger ruled supreme, registering usage rates of 90 percent and 70 percent (respectively) of IM users.
Messenger also scored highly in Asia Pacific, grabbing 70 percent of IM users.
Things are a lot tighter in the highly competitive North American market, where MSN Messenger, AOL/Aim and Yahoo! Messenger battled it out to each grab between 27 percent and 37 percent of IM users in February.
Skype surges
Skype is seen as a growing contender (it’s our IM tool of choice), with the program now being used by 14 percent of IM users worldwide.
The VoIP/IM client application is proving to be a real hit in the Asia Pacific, where it has already garnered 26 percent of IM users, although it’s a different story in North America, where Skype can only claim 3 percent of the online population.
We love messaging
The study suggests that instant messaging has now become an integral part of people’s lives, with the 313 million worldwide users ~~wasting away precious work hours~~ increasing their productivity by staying online an average of about 6.3 hours a day.
comScore Networks
12 April, 2006
Microsoft ‘World’s Most Valuable Brand’
Two new studies into branding have produced two very different results, with a UK study declaring Microsoft the strongest brand in the known universe, while research in the US saw consumers slapping Microsoft down to near-bottom of their ‘most trusted’ list.
Brand consultancy Millward Brown Optimor (MBO) rated companies by calculating the value their brand was expected to generate in the future.
Microsoft topped the list, with the study showing most consumers held positive feelings about the brand. Andy Farr, executive director at MBO commented, “When you look at what customers and consumers say to us, they do hold Microsoft in high regard.”
“They don’t love [Microsoft] like they love Google but they respect it,” he added just before his laptop crashed.
The survey results were based on a load of marketing guff that involved measuring buzzword-laded criteria like ‘brand momentum,’ ‘intangible earnings’ and ‘brand contribution,’ whatever all that means.
Tech companies hogged four of the top 10 global brand places with Vodafone grabbing the number one UK slot, while Google came in seventh overall for global brands and second for the tech sector,
Big-boy retailers also figured prominently, with Wal-Mart coming in at number six and Tesco notching up 30th place overall and number two in the UK).
According to the study, these are the top ten global brands (rated in $millions):
Microsoft Corporation ($62,039)
GE ($55,834)
Coca-Cola ($41.406)
China Mobile ($39,168)
Marlboro cigarettes ($38,510)
Wal-Mart ($37,567)
Google ($37,445)
IBM ($38,084)
Citigroup ($31.028)
Bose, Dell, and Apple Score High On Trust
Across the pond, a brand study by Forrester Research saw Bose, Dell and Apple Computer being declared as technology brands trusted by U.S. consumers, with users warily eying the likes of Toshiba, Hitachi, Microsoft, Gateway and LG.
Forrester surveyed 4,700 US households between September and October last year to find out how much they trusted 48 technology brands.
The results weren’t too encouraging for the industry, with the survey showing an across-the-board drop in trust in consumer computer and electronics brands – a trend continuing from 2003.
In the survey, only Apple and TiVo managed to register an increase in consumer trust between 2003 and 2005.
With Microsoft’s brand scraping in at a lowly 20th spot out of the 22 companies included in the poll, Forrester’s warned that Microsoft faces big a consumer defection risk.
With a deft turn of marketing-speak, Forrester analyst Ted Schadler observed that, “A decline in trust causes brand erosion and price-driven purchase decisions, which in turn correlates with low market growth.”
“Trust is a powerful way to measure a brand’s value and its ability to command a premium price or drive consumers into a higher-profit direct channel,” concluded Ted Schadler.
5 April, 2006
Mobiles Are Ruddy Annoying But Invaluable: Study
We didn’t think we needed a poll to find this one out, but a new poll in the States has found that just about everyone – including fellow mobile users – get annoyed by people talking loudly on their phones in public.
The AP-AOL-Pew poll questioned people’s attitudes towards mobile phones and although most declared their phones to be very useful things, nearly 90 per cent said that they encountered others being annoying on their phones.
In a fabulous act of self righteous denial, a mere 8 percent thought that their own public yakking could possibly be seen as sometimes rude too.
Hooked on handsets
The survey found that more than two-thirds of mobile users say they’d find it hard to be parted from their precious phones, while a hardcore 26 percent said they couldn’t imagine life without their mobile.
Half of mobile users say that they keep their phones permanently on, while seventy five percent say that they have used it in an emergency.
The convenience of mobile phones has its drawbacks too, with around twenty five percent complaining that they’re bothered by too many calls, and over a third of those interviewed moaning that their service bills were sometime “shocking.”
More worryingly, an idiotic 28 percent admitted to not driving a safely as they might because they were chatting on their mobile.
Multimedia is for da kidZ
Although most phone users stuck to the basics, annoying others with their public calls, growing feature sets are tempting users to fork out for phones with built-in cameras, MP3 players, games and Internet/e-mail access.
We’re not quite sure of the significance of this, but the survey found that “young adults and minorities” liked multimedia handsets best and were more likely than “older adults and whites” to text, take snaps, surf the web and play tunes on their phones.
Texting finally starts to take off in the States
Text messaging is nowhere near as popular in the States as it is in Europe and Asia, with a mere one-third of U.S. cell phone owners giving their keypads some texting action.
However, this text messaging may be set to cross over to the mainstream with two-thirds of American users between 18 and 29 year olds now using the service.
Not surprisingly, multimedia gizmos also found more favour with young adults, with over half using the camera functions on their phones, 47 percent playing games and 28 percent using the Internet.
Pew Research
3 April, 2006
Digital Music Sales In 2005 ‘Crazy’
New figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reveal soaring global sales of digital music while overall music sales continue to decline. This in the same week that Gnarls Barkley and their musical ditty Crazy have become the first digital-only Number One in the UK Hit-parade, as we’d previously highlighted.
The IFPI reported record company revenues from digital sales nearly tripling from $400 million in 2004 to a massive $1.1 billion last year, with individual song downloads rising to 470 million units, up from 160 million.
Despite bumper digital sales, the IFPI said that global sales of music CDs and DVDs were down for the sixth consecutive year (down 3 percent), adding that burgeoning digital sales weren’t enough to offset the decline.
According to the IFPI, 618.9 million CDs were sold during 2005, substantially down 19 percent from the 762.8 million sold in 2001.
IFPI Chairman and Chief Executive John Kennedy pointed an accusing finger at online piracy as well as competition from other entertainment outlets and changes on the way punters get their music.
The growing single song download market (which accounted for 86 percent of purchases), has resulted in many listeners choosing to grab individual tracks rather than download entire albums.
The United States, Japan, Britain, Germany and France proved to have the strongest digital sales and were also the best performing markets overall.
“In Japan, digital has already made up for the decline in physical sales, and other markets should go this way,” commented Kennedy.
As we reported last week, the greater popularity of mobiles over PCs in Asia has resulted in far higher mobile music downloads. In fact, just 9 percent of consumers in Japan download music to their PCs compared to 65 percent in the US, Britain and Germany.
The biggest selling album of the year was “X&Y” by Coldplay, which could be heard being played – not too loudly, mind – in 8 million bedrooms, company cars and comfy living rooms.
Elsewhere, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that despite a bumper wholesale revenue of $7 billion, overall shipments of music products – including CD’s and digital albums and singles combined – fell 3.9 percent last year.
Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of RIAA boasted that illegal file-sharing on many popular online channels had been “held in check” as the industry continues its blitz on piracy.
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
3 April, 2006
Mobile Music Download Market Explodes
Global revenue from music downloaded onto mobile phones went through the roof last year, with pundits predicting that the only way is up for the next five years.
ABI Research’s “Mobile Music Services” surveyed world markets for downloads of full music tracks, ringtones and ringback tones and revealed that the market for full track music downloads to mobile devices had ballooned by 2,000% in the twelve months to the end of 2005.
Compared to sales of $12.4 million in 2004, last year saw an explosive growth in the market, with handset owners shelling out a thumping great $251 million on music downloads – and that figure is expected to reach $9.3 billion by 2011.
The report notes that the high penetration of home PCs in North America has limited over-the-air downloads compared to overseas markets like Asia where mobile phones enjoy greater popularity than PCs.
Similarly, the absence of a Japanese iTunes store until Q4 of 2005 also helped telecom operator KDDI shift 30 million mobile tracks in Japan last year.
How to make a mint from mobile music
If you fancy chancing your arm in the music download market, Arthur Daley’s of the world will appreciate the list of ‘prerequisites for future success in the music-download business’ dished out in the report.
These include a 3G network capable of supporting the product, agreements between carriers and record labels and a distribution system that checks that handsets can accept the content and, crucially, ensures that punters fork out for the product.
Moreover, there must be robust copyright-protection software in place which allows mobile phone users to shunt tracks between devices with no bother.
Finally, the handsets themselves must come with enough memory to store an ample selection of banging tunes and be capable of supporting music downloads and transfers.
And with that, we’re off to launch the Digital Lifestyle Music Download service from our lock-up under the arches.
ABI Research
29 March, 2006
American Kids Losing Sleep Over Gadgets
American teens are getting far less kip they’re supposed to, and a new study points the finger of blame at electronic gadgets in bedrooms.
Boffins say adolescents should get nine hours of sleep a night, but a survey by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that 45 percent of middle and high school students were recording less than eight hours on a school night, with more than a quarter nodding off during lessons at least once a week.
Jodi A. Mindell, associate director of the Sleep Center at the Children’s said that computers, mobile phones, televisions, video games and other gadgets were all playing a part in keeping kids away from their slumbers.
“Those with four or more electronic devices in their bedroom were twice as likely to fall asleep in school,” she said.
The “Sleep in America” poll – which polled around 1,600 youths aged 11-17 and their caregivers – found that technological distractions were preventing kids from winding down and relaxing at the end of the day.
Back when we were kids (cue: Hovis music), we only had the option of listening to the radio or reading a book come bedtime, but American kids now have bedrooms positively buzzing with technological distractions.
The survey found that in the hour before bedtime kids would be kept wide awake watching television (76 percent), surfing the web/sending instant-messages (44 percent) or chatting on the phone (40 percent).
“Many teens have a technological playground in their bedrooms that offers a variety of ways to stay stimulated and delay sleep,” commented Mary Carskadon, director of the E.P. Bradley Hospital Sleep and Chronobiology Research Lab at Brown University.
“Ramping down from the day’s activities with a warm bath and a good book are much better ways to transition to bedtime,” she advised, adding that firmly upheld bed/wake times and TV-free bedrooms would all help kids get the kip the need.
Personally, we can’t imagine having a bedroom that wasn’t stuffed full of gadgets and gizmos but then we’re all, err, grown up. And tired.
Sleepfoundation.org
National Center on Sleep Disorders Research
29 March, 2006
Supersites Bloom As Web Users ‘Only Visit Six Sites’
There may be almost 76 million sites stuffed full of six billion pages of information vying for our attention on the Web, but it seems that most surfers only choose to visit six sites on a regular basis.
This rather amazing fact emerged from a survey commissioned by the Cabinet Office to publicise the relaunch of Directgov, the Government’s one-stop Internet Website.
The study echoed what experts are calling the ‘Supersite’ phenomenon, with over half of UK Internet users (51 per cent) visiting just six or less sites on a regular basis.
It seems that despite the immense choice on offer, most people deliberately restrict themselves to visiting just a handful of sites, preferring to stick with the familiar and the trusted.
The survey also found that three quarters of people questioned declared the Internet to be “indispensable” to their daily lives.
Sadly, it seems that the days of random surfing are coming to a close, with the vast majority of Web users (95 per cent) going online with a specific destination in mind.
For most people, it appears that banking, shopping, travel and holiday Websites are all the Web is good for, with “supersites” now including Ebay, Amazon, Google, Lastminute.com and National Rail Enquiries. And, of course, digital-lifestyles.info and urban75.com.
Naturally, all of this new research ties in perfectly with this relaunch of the www.direct.gov.uk, the government’s very own wannabe supersite.
Bringing together public services from across eleven Whitehall departments, visitors to Directgov can unearth a mountain of useful information and services, from renewing driving licences, car taxes or passports , locating local services like schools, childminders and recycling and even planning journeys on foot, by car or by public transport.
Building up a formidable head of promotional steam, Cabinet Office Minister Jim Murphy enthused, “Directgov makes it much easier for people to get to the public services they need by joining up government to bring everything together all in one place.”
“It’s our response to the changing way that people want to access information, communicate and deal with things online and on the move. Renewing your car tax, learning about benefit entitlement, finding out about training or checking your council’s recycling facilities need not be complicated – it’s all there at www.direct.gov.uk,” he added.
7 March, 2006
Two Thirds Of Japanese 5-9 Year Olds To Have Mobiles
According to a new report, future growth in the Japanese mobile market is to be focused on the only market segment yet to reach 100% saturation: the under 14s and over 55s.
Research from the “Japan Mobile Market” report predicts that mobile phone ownership will soar amongst the (ridiculously young, in our opinion) 5 – 9 year-old age group.
The study estimates that mobile ownership amongst the young ‘uns is set to more than double from 29% in 2004 to nearly two thirds (64%) by 2007 – at this rate kids will soon be getting a mobile shoved in their hands as soon as they learn to talk!
The biggest growth, however, comes from the 55-65 age group, with 1.62 million new customers expected in 2006.
Despite falling Average Revenue Per Unit (that’s ARPU acronym fans!), Japanese operators DoCoMo and AU saw revenues and market share increase in 2005 due to increases in their subscriber bases.
Things haven’t been so rosy for Vodafone KK who have only secured 5.4% of the 3G market and are finding revenue being impacted by falling numbers of subscribers.
Blended ARPU is expected to continue sliding from $58 pcm in 2005 to $57 pcm by 2007 but this should be compensated by data ARPU which is predicted to rise from $15 pcm to $17 pcm over the same period, thanks to the growth of content market.
The games market is expected to keep growing – mainly fuelled by 20-30 year-olds – with the mobile music market worth $1.35bn by 2007.
Glossary:
Average Revenue Per Unit (ARPU): This measures the average monthly revenue generated for each customer unit (e.g. mobile phone) that a carrier has in operation.
Japan Mobile Market 2006 – Your Statistical Guide To Understanding The Mobile Opportunities in Japan 2006-2007
13 February, 2006
Study: In Ear Headphones Increase Risk Of Hearing Loss
In-ear headphones (“earbuds”) like those sold with the iPod and other music players can increase the risk of hearing loss, according to a US audiologist (a what?!)
Research undertaken by Dean Garstecki of Northwestern University has found that that an increasing number of young people were now experiencing the kind of hearing loss found in aging adults.
According to Garstecki, cheap earbud headphones were more likely to increase the risk of hearing loss than old-school ‘over the ear’ headphones like the Grado SR60.
Garstecki’s studies found that MP3 users often crank the volume up to 110 to 120 decibels – enough to cause hearing loss after about an hour of listening.
The problem is worse for earbud wearers because the sound source is placed directly into the ear, boosting the sound signal by as much as six to nine decibels – the difference in intensity between the sound made by a vacuum cleaner and the sound of a motorcycle engine according to Garstecki.
We can certainly verify that some folks seem oblivious to the risk, blasting their music so high that we can hear the annoying “tssk chk tssk chk” leaking from in-ear phones over the thunderous rattle of a tube train.
The risk is exasperated by the bigger storage capacities and increased battery life of today’s MP3 players, encouraging users to keep on listening for longer periods.
Like a next door neighbour banging on the wall, Garstecki advises MP3 listeners to “turn it down!”, adding, “if music listeners are willing to turn the volume down further still and use different headphones, they can increase the amount of time that they can safely listen.”
Noise-cancelling headphones are also seen as a better choice because they reduce background noise but their added bulk and increased expense is likely to limit adoption.
Garstecki proposes the 60%/60 minute rule as a solution – this involves listening to an MP3 device for no longer than about an hour a day and at levels below 60% of maximum volume.
“If music listeners are willing to turn the volume down further still and use different headphones, they can increase the amount of time that they can safely listen,” commented Garstecki.
While we share Garstecki’s health concerns, we’re not sure how effective a campaign along the lines of, “Turn it down! Play less music!” is likely to have with the wired generation walking about with thousands of songs in their pocket.
Northwestern.edu
19 December, 2005
UK Broadband To Peak At 60% Adoption: Datamonitor
Broadband adoption in the UK may soon be reaching its peak, according to a new report from Datamonitor.
The analyst firm says that although consumer adoption of broadband is at its fastest rate yet in Europe, it expects national broadband adoption to peak at around 60 per cent.
Broadband is currently used by at least half of all internet users in the UK, but looks set to follow the US market where broadband take-up has slowed sharply.
By the end of 2005, nearly eight million UK households should be hooked up to a broadband connection with report author Tim Gower predicting “a good eighteen months to two years of strong penetration increases across Western Europe before markets begin to mature.”
Although we’re nearly broadbanded out in Europe, the report sees excellent opportunities for growth in less mature markets.
“The current situation in many markets is best described as one of rapidly increasing penetration, where broadband has effectively entered its growth sweet spot,” observed Gower.
“With some markets potentially experiencing changes in the household penetration of broadband of up to 10 per cent in a calendar year, service providers must be well positioned to take advantage of the forthcoming penetration acceleration, prior to the inevitable slowdown,” he added.
The report found that DSL and ADSL were the most popular broadband technologies, with adoption being driven by cheaper access rates, marketing campaigns and the growing popularity of broadband-reliant applications like iTunes.
Datamonitor
28 November, 2005