We hope you can join us on the Think with Google Google+ page on Thursday June 7th at 4:30pm EST/ 1:30pm PST to learn from mobile thought leaders Time Warner Cable and their partner agency Leapfrog Online to understand how a well executed mobile search marketing campaign helped grow Time Warner mobile revenue from 0% to 10% of total digital sales in just 3 months. Google’s Andy Miller, Head of Global Mobile Search Sales and Strategy, hosts Rob Roy, VP and GM of e-Commerce and Interactive Marketing at Time Warner Cable, and mobile guru Cass Baker, EVP of Leapfrog Online, as the three of them explore insights from Time Warner Cable’s phenomenal success in acquiring new customers through mobile.  

Tune-in for tips and strategies on putting together a winning mobile marketing campaign, how to best take advantage of click-to-call, Time Warner Cable’s latest mobile success metrics, and the latest Google has seen in mobile search momentum.  We’ll be releasing a full case study here on our blog that you can read to learn more.  We hope you’ll be there. Details on how to tune in:
In order to view the Hangout on Air, visit the Think with Google Google+ page at 4:30pm EST on June 7th, look for the stream post, and click to tune in.  Don’t forget to be signed into Google+!

On June 7th, look for the Hangout on Air post like the image above on the Think with Google +page and click to tune-in!

Posted by: Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Cross-posted on the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog 
Advertisers want to manage their mobile display campaigns with the accountability and ease provided by the DoubleClick platform. Toward this goal, in November 2011, we introduced a streamlined workflow for mobile display campaigns by adding support for a “Mobile In-App” rich media format in DoubleClick Studio and DoubleClick for Advertisers. Today we’re happy to announce that advertisers can serve mobile ads, in both standard and rich media formats, from DoubleClick for Advertisers into the AdMob network with no beta restrictions and new options for easily creating beautiful, mobile rich media ads.

This ad serving solution makes it easier to build, traffic, serve and measure mobile rich media ads, allowing easy integration of mobile into the overall workflow. Media teams gain access to interaction rate and clickthrough rate for their mobile rich media ads and can compare this to these metrics for their other ads. There is no need to fuss with multiple reports from different publishers, all information can be aggregated with our robust reporting system.

Building mobile rich media ads can start in DoubleClick Studio, where creative agencies upload HTML5 assets to build and test their creatives. Or, our services team can assemble any one of eleven mobile rich media designs ideal for showing your videos, retail locations or products via a rich ad placed within AdMob mobile apps. These designs make it easy for advertisers to create beautiful and highly interactive ads with no HTML5 expertise.

With desktop display and rich media, advertisers have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it in multiple places. We are continuing to work towards making this a reality for mobile display advertising by extending our reach beyond the AdMob network and integrating with other mobile in-app networks, and are actively performing initial testing. As our reach grows, so will our ability to help advertisers manage their mobile display campaigns with accountability and ease.

To learn more about how DoubleClick’s mobile solutions can meet your needs, download the DoubleClick Guide to Mobile Rich Media.

Posted by Jen Klimas, Wook Chung and Shamim Samadi

Did you enjoy the warm weekend across Europe with a nice BBQ and some relaxation in front of the TV with the Eurovision Song Contest? If you were watching the exceptional vocal achievements of the contestants like 100 million Europeans did last Saturday, it is likely that you had a smartphone or a tablet device in your hand at the same time.

From our recent Our Mobile Planet research, we know that consumers actively use their smartphones when multi-tasking with other media and more than 50% of Europeans do this while watching the TV. We therefore wanted to understand how Eurovision viewers were using their mobile devices during the finals by analyzing Google search results.

Top 10 mobile Eurovision countries - share of Google search queries related to Eurovision

Looking at related search queries from all 42 Eurovision countries on the day of and day before the finals of the Song Contest, we saw an increase in the share of smartphone and tablet searches by nearly 50% from Eurovision 2011. Consumers in a handful of European countries were particularly savvy, actively using their mobile devices to learn more about  the mind-blowing performances they saw on screen. More than 54% of Eurovision fans in Denmark searched from mobile devices, along with more than 40% in both Switzerland and Norway. Additionally, Denmark and Norway had the highest share of Eurovision searches conducted on tablets with 11% of Norway’s and 14% of Denmark’s Eurovision queries occurring on tablets.

Tablets and smartphones come out when the show starts - please note this does not show absolute search volume

Looking at a timeline of searches for Eurovision (normalized based on total search queries for each device type), show us that these mobile and tablet searches were largely complementary to desktop searches. At the primetime of the Eurovision finals, on the evening of May 26th,  we observed that people were switching to their smartphones and tablets with more than 38% of queries coming from mobile devices. This is similar to previous search data showing that tablets come out as the sun goes down. The large screen and compact form factor of tablets favour usage in front of the TV and from previous studies we know that the top browsing location is on the couch.

So, how can advertisers take advantage of all these multi-tasking mobile consumers? Make sure that you are on their screen with Google Mobile Ads so that you can get in front of them at the right time with the right ad formats. This way, if a customer sees your TV commercial and then picks up their phone to find more information, you may show up at the top of the results.

You can easily show your ads only when your customers are on their couch looking for information thanks to custom scheduling in AdWords. Or, you can configure your account to bid more aggressively at the times of the day that correspond with your television advertisements.

And don’t forget to add a mobile specific call-to-action such as a clickable phone number for potential customers holding a phone in their hand. You should also ensure that the site your users see on their smartphones is mobile optimized for the best user experience. With all that done you can sit back, relax and watch the stunning performance of Loreen from Sweden who finally won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Published by Frank Albert Coates, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile & Social ads EMEA.

Earlier this month, we announced new features in AdWords that provide a simple solution for developers and businesses with a mobile app looking to acquire users and track downloads. Tomorrow (May 31st) at 10am PST, 1pm EST, we’re hosting a live Hangout On Air with Product Manager Anurag Agrawal  in a conversation with businesses who have been early to test this out - Brian Wright, Sr. Marketing Manager at Lookout Mobile Security, and Troy Morris, Mobile Marketing Manager at WhitePages.   We’ll also be demonstrating how to use the new Mobile App Extension, and set up Android Download Tracking inside AdWords.  

How to tune into this Hangout On Air:

1. Visit the Google Ads +Page at 10am PST/1pm EST
2. Look for the stream post, and click to tune in.  Don’t forget to be signed into Google+!

Look for the Hangout on Air post like the image above on the Google Ads +Page and click to tune-in!

Leave us comments and questions! We’ll be sure to answer these during or in a follow up to the Hangout On Air.

Posted by: Sonja Lee, Google Mobile Ads

Today we continue our  exploration of regional findings from the new 2012 Our mobile Planet research and examine smartphone behavior in Latin America.

Did you know that Brazil has more smartphone users than Germany or France do?1 In fact, with about 27M and 23M smartphone users respectively, Brazil and Mexico both have more smartphone users than Australia has people (Australia’s population is around 22M).2  These are some of the surprising results from the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet smartphone research, which mark Brazil and Mexico’s arrival as mobile giants on the global scene.  The study also revealed exciting insights from Argentina - with 24% smartphone penetration, Argentina has not only the highest penetration of the three Latin American countries included in the study - it also has higher smartphone penetration than Germany did just one year ago.

These numbers defy the common perception that these large Latin American markets are far behind the rest of the world in smartphone adoption.  They in fact already possess larger absolute numbers of smartphone users than many other countries, and above-average usage patterns in many areas.  For example: 

• 65% of Mexican smartphone users search on their phones every day, compared to 57% in the U.S.
• 90% of Argentine smartphone users use their phones to access social networks, compared to 63% in Japan
• 29% of Brazilian smartphone users have changed their minds about a purchase while in a store due to research conducted on their phone, compared to 15% in Canada

It’s clear that mobile has arrived in a big way in these markets.  To better understand the importance of smartphones across Latin America and the world, visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet to gain free access to powerful data across 40 countries in 22 languages.  Other Latin America highlights from the study include:

Mobile Is Changing the Way Latin American Consumers Interact with the World...

• 57% of Brazilian smartphone users read newspapers or magazines on their phones
• 73% of Argentine smartphone users check email on their phones every day
• 81% of Mexican smartphone users watch video on their phones

...Especially When It Comes to Shopping

• 26% of Mexican smartphone users have made a purchase on their phone itself
• 45% of Brazilian smartphone users have made a purchase on their computer as a result of conducting research on their phone
• 82% of Argentine smartphone users have researched a product or service on their phones

Smartphones have arrived in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, and businesses who sell to customers in these markets need to react quickly to follow the consumer and implement cross-channel strategies that incorporate mobile.  To learn more about Latin American mobile consumer behavior, check out the data explorer and chart builder on thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet. Get the data you need to understand the new mobile consumer and to help shape your mobile business strategies.

Posted by Peter Fernandez, Head of Mobile Advertising, Latin America


(1) With a population of about 195M (World Bank) and smartphone penetration of 14%, Brazil has about 27M smartphone users. With populations of about 82M and 65M and smartphone penetration of 29% and 38% respectively, Germany and France have about 24M and 25M smartphone users.
(2) With a population of about 113M and smartphone penetration of 20%, Mexico has about 23M smartphone users.

Today we continue our  exploration of regional findings from the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet research by examining smartphone behavior in Europe and the Middle East.

UK, Sweden and Norway increased smartphone adoption by 20% in just a year

Click to view UK mobile consumer infographic

Do you see smartphones everywhere these days? As the new Our Mobile Planet smartphone research shows, the Middle East is leading the smartphone race globally with 62% of mobile users being on smartphones in UAE and 60% in Saudi Arabia. In the UAE 71% of users are accessing Internet every day and 75% use their smartphones at airports, proving that the UAE is an international hub. In addition, more than half of consumers in the UK, Norway and Sweden now have a smartphone. Smartphone adoption in these 3 countries increased by more than 20% since our study last year.

All these results are a part of a global study we conducted with Ipsos MediaCT on smartphone users across 26 countries in Q1 2012, including 17 countries in Europe and the Middle East that is available on thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet.

Now let’s have a closer look at the region with the highest mobile adoption.

The Middle East has young active mobile shoppers and social networkers

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are new countries that we added to the study this year. What stands out in the demography of this smartphone population is that they are predominantly young and male; more than 72% are below 34 years old and more than 62% are male. These consumers are so dedicated to their mobile devices that more than 73% don’t leave home without them.

From the data, we can see that smartphone owners in the Middle East are the most active mobile shoppers. In Egypt, 41% of smartphone owners have a made a purchase on their mobile device, and of these mobile shoppers 80% make purchases once a month or more.  This monthly shopping behavior is the highest out of all of the countries that participated and in fact, 46% of Egyptians expect to make more mobile purchases in the future.

Among smartphone shoppers, Egyptians purchase most frequently

Mobile consumers in the Middle East are also using their smartphones to engage with online and offline advertisements. For example, more than ¾ of smartphone users in Egypt have performed a mobile search after seeing an ad such as a TV commercial offline. Although, only half look at the first page of search results on their phones, more than 90% of smartphone users in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE notice mobile advertising when they are surfing the mobile web.

Be ready for the mobile revolution with GetMo, Start Mobile & Mobilisez-vous

GetMo (aka GoMo) site launched in the UK

One of the major takeaways from this study is that Europeans are among the most active smartphone users globally. This means that it is about time for your businesses to follow consumers and give them a mobile optimized experience when they are looking for services on-the-go. To help businesses get ready to create mobile sites, we have recently launched our Go Mobile (GoMo) initiative in many European countries; GetMo (UK), Start Mobile (DE), GetMo (NL), Mobilisez-vous (FR), Haz tu web movile (ES) and Move mobile (IT). If your business is currently creating a mobile strategy, you can get concrete advice and start creating your mobile presence through the GoMo initiative. In addition, find out more about your future mobile customer by visiting thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet.

Posted by Frank Albert Coates, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile & Social ads EMEA

One of the things we hear the most from our agency partners and customers is that it’s hard to keep track of all the features, resources, or tools to help your business succeed on mobile. We understand! We’re inviting you to mark your calendars for the first week of June, “Mobile Education Week”. From June 4th-8th, we’re running a series of free webinars in partnership with the Learn With Google program, which will take you on a deep dive on some hot topics in the world of mobile marketing. 

Tues, June 5: GoMo: Mobilize your Site with Quick and Easy New Tools from Google & DudaMobile  (Register here)

• Watch as we showcase how businesses can go mobile and build a mobile-friendly site live in the webinar.  We’ll be partnering with the experts at Dudamobile to show you the new tool to mobilize your site for free.

Wednesday, June 6th: Our Mobile Planet: Understanding U.S. Smartphone Consumers (Register here)

• We recently unveiled Google’s latest edition of our mobile usage research here: thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet. Discover how smartphones are transforming core consumer behavior and the way we connect with others, stay informed, keep ourselves entertained, shop and navigate the world around us. Join us as we discuss implications for advertisers and strategies businesses can use to win the moments that matter with mobile.

Thursday, June 7th: Introducing Mobile Apps Inventory in AdWords  (Register here)

• According to comScore, 4 out of 5 mobile media minutes in the US are spent in apps. Now, AdWords makes it easy for you to extend your campaigns to reach users inside mobile apps. We'll review mobile-specific targeting, ad units, and reporting than enable you to optimize your ROI.

Click on the links next to each event to register. To see more Learn With Google educational events, visit http://www.google.com/ads/experienced/webinars.html.

Posted by Sonja Lee, Google Mobile Ads

Today we continue our  exploration of regional findings from the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet research and examine smartphone behavior in the United States.

Smartphones have taken America by storm. In less than a year, smartphone penetration in the US has jumped more than 10%. 44% of Americans now own a smartphone and the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet smartphone research shows that they’ve become  increasingly indispensable to our daily lives. Smartphones continue to transform core consumer behavior, from how we connect with others, keep entertained, search, shop and look for local information. This has implications for marketers who now have more opportunity to reach the constantly connected consumer.  You can see many of the key findings on US mobile consumer behavior in the infographic below.

Click to download US Mobile Consumer Behavior infographic

Highlights from the US Our Mobile Planet Smartphone Research

Many of the global mobile consumer behavior findings we shared yesterday are common for US smartphone owners. You can explore these findings using the chart builder tool on thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet or get the topline insights by downloading the country level report. Today we explore findings from the US smartphone research and their implications for businesses via slides from the downloadable US country report.

Smartphones Provide Answers at Your Fingertips - Anytime, Anywhere
Smartphones are little portable computers in our pockets, allowing us to find information on-the-go or at home, whenever and wherever we want. Whether we’re trying to settle a trivia bet with a friend, find the nearest gas station or get the latest news, we’re increasingly using our smartphones to get the information we need.

• 80% never leave home without their phones in hand
• 71% use their smartphones at restaurants and 56% at airports, among many other locations
• 62% have used their smartphone to go online seven out of seven days in the past week
• 57% of smartphone searchers conduct searches everyday on their phones

What’s the implication for businesses of consumers having answers at their  fingertips and information at their whim whenever they want? It means your customers have more opportunities to become engaged with your business. You need to be where your customers are, and today that means they are on mobile.

This is important because 66% of smartphone users search as a result of seeing an offline ad. For example, 58% look for more information after seeing an ad on TV.   The new smartphone  research also tells us that 52% of smartphone owners use the Internet on their phones while watching TV. In fact, 86% are using their smartphones while consuming some other form of media.

It’s important to get your message found by consumers, as 61% of smartphone users only look at the first page of search results and 89% notice mobile ads.  Businesses should integrate mobile into cross-media campaign plans and understand that today’s consumers can easily be activated by the multiple screens and media around them.

Smartphones Transform the Shopping Process

Smartphones have significantly changed the way Americans shop and make purchase decisions. 96% of smartphone owners use their mobile devices to research product and service information.  35% intentionally have their smartphones with them to compare prices and find product info while on the go, and 32 % have actually changed their mind about purchasing a product while in a store as a result of smartphone research. Smartphones are thus making us smarter shoppers and are influential at the point of purchase.

Research  on smartphones also leads to purchases across channels. 37% end up purchasing online and 32% prefer to purchase in-store after having conducted research on a product or service on their smartphones. 

We also see that mobile is an emerging point of purchase as 35% of smartphone Internet users have made a purchase on their smartphone (not including apps purchases).  68% have done this in the past month. What’s more is that these smartphone shoppers are purchasing often  with  62% of smartphone shoppers saying they make some kind of purchase on their phones  at least once a month.

It’s clear that smartphones have become a critical part of the shopping process and an indispensable shopping tool that influences not only if consumers will make a purchase but also where. With this instant access to information all the time, smartphones are breaking down the walls between digital and physical worlds. Consumers will go where they can find the most convenience, the best price or the greatest customer experience.  Businesses need to understand this radical shift in core consumer behavior and implement cross-channel strategies that incorporate mobile. It’s also critically important that businesses have mobile-optimized websites as consumers research and buy on mobile, and a poor mobile site experience could make the difference between winning or losing a customer.

To learn more about US mobile consumer behavior, get the US Our Mobile Planet country report, download the infographic  or use the data explorer and chart builder on thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet. Get the data you need to understand the new mobile consumer and to help  shape your mobile business strategies.


Posted by Dai Pham, Group Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads

In case you missed it, last Thursday Google hosted a mobile site builder product demonstration and broadcasted it live with Hangouts on Air on Think With Google’s Google+ page. During the Hangout, we featured two businesses building mobile-friendly sites in minutes. Participants included:

• Dennis Mink, Chief Marketing Office from DudaMobile
• Adrienne Burhoe, Chief Operating Officer from Top Mast Resort in Cape Cod, Massachusetts
• Felicia Viening, General Manager from Savas Restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Key takeaways

• Understand your mobile user and the content they need, and bring those elements to your mobile-friendly site
• Make it easy for people to contact and find your business
• Remember to paste the auto-redirect code to your desktop site
• Create a mobile-friendly site today with Google’s simple and easy-to-use site creation tool

Check out the recorded video of our Hangout below and visit howtogomo.com/getstarted to build your own mobile site. It only takes minutes and Google will pick up the cost for the first year.



Posted by: Suzanne Mumford, Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads

Today we continue our  exploration of regional findings from the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet research and examine smartphone behavior in the Asia Pacific region.

Have you ever left home without your mobile phone? If so, you probably remember the feeling of anxiety that comes from being disconnected.  The new Our Mobile Planet smartphone research shows that you are not alone in this feeling. In Australia 74% of smartphone owners do not leave home without their phone and in Japan that number is even higher at 78%.  Just like they have shown rapid growth in the economy and in culture recently, Asian countries are gaining momentum in increasing smartphone usage.

To better understand the importance of smartphones across Asia, and to see how it relates to you and your business, visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet to gain free access to powerful data across 40 countries in 22 languages.  This is an updated version of previous Our Mobile Planet research, with an improved user interface for easier navigation and newly updated data. We commissioned Ipsos MediaCT to conduct new research on smartphone Internet users across 26 countries in Q1 2012, including four APAC countries - Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand. You can also find last year’s research data from eight other APAC countries including Korea, Singapore and India.

New 2012 Research Findings: Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand

1. APAC consumers increasingly choose smartphones

• Smartphone penetration in Asia has increased by leaps and bounds within less than a year. Even though it was broadly known that Japanese people often use their phones to search on the Internet in their daily lives, in our last year’s research, only 6% of respondents answered that they have smartphones. However, the number has more than tripled this year and now 20% of Japanese people are smartphone users. In Australia, more than half of the population(52%) own smartphones and this is 40% growth from last year’s stats(37%)
• The importance of smartphones can be seen throughout Asia in a number of ways, for example in China 54% of smartphone owners would rather give up their TV than their smartphone, or in New Zealand 59% of smartphone owners access the Internet on a daily basis. Smartphones are already becoming indispensable to Asian consumers.

2. APAC consumers are active smartphone users

• 77% of Japanese smartphone users have used their phone every day in the past 7 days, which is the highest among the 26 around the world where we conducted research. 64% of Chinese users, 58% of Australians and 46% of New Zealanders also use their phones everyday.
• Search is one of the most common activities on smartphones. 68% of Japanese, 63% of Chinese, and 51% of Australian smartphone owners perform mobile searches everyday.

3.  Smartphones are used with other media

• Smartphone owners consume multiple other types of media in conjunction with their smartphone.  The top three cross media activities are watching TV, listening to music, and using the Internet.  In Japan, more than half (53%) of respondents use smartphones when they watch TV and 30% of them use while surfing the Internet. This data shows that mobile marketing is no longer optional – consumers are always on their smartphones, even when they have other entertainment media options.
• People search on mobile after seeing an offline ad. Chinese smartphone users are very responsive as a staggering 87% have performed a mobile search after seeing an ad.  This figure is high in other markets as well, 63% of Australians, 62% of Japanese, and 57% of New Zealanders also search on their phones after seeing an offline ad.  

Consumers take an action after local search: Called business or service after searching on smartphone

4. Smartphones are the new yellow pages for local businesses

• Having a mobile presence is critical for local businesses. In Australia and New Zealand, 86% and 80% of smartphone users search locally on their phones. The number is even higher in Japan and China where 91% and 93% of respondents indicated that they search local businesses on their phones.
• Consumers do not stop after search. They actually visit the store, call the business, and make purchases.  From the graph above, you can see how many people call the businesses after performing a local search. Consumers from Australia and New Zealand showed similarly high results, 54% and 50% respectively. 33% of Chinese users and 17% of Japanese users also answered that they called the businesses after searching locally.

5. Shopping on mobile devices is growing, be ready for your customers

• Through our research we discovered that almost all of the smartphone users in APAC countries use their smartphones to research a product or service. In Japan 100% of smartphone owners use their mobile device to research products or services. These numbers are high throughout APAC where we see 94% from Australia, 97% from China, and 66% from New Zealand.
• Smartphone shoppers also make mobile purchases quite often. Of the people in China that have made a purchase on their smartphone, 76% of them make mobile purchases at least once a month, which is the highest number globally. 59% of Australians, 52% of New Zealanders and 51% of the Japanese smartphone shoppers also make purchases at least once a month.

It’s clear that consumers have gone mobile and that businesses need to think about how to make reaching the new mobile consumer an important part of their strategy.  Visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet to get the insights you need to make data driven decisions on how to engage with your customers on their smartphone. 


Posted by: Soyeon Kim, APAC Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads

As smartphones grow in number and importance, finding good data to understand mobile consumer behavior is increasingly important for businesses. Today we are launching the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet smartphone research for 26 countries at thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet.  Altogether Our Mobile Planet provides free access to unique data for a total of 40 countries in 22 languages from the 2011 and 2012 waves of research. We commissioned Ipsos MediaCT to conduct this research and are making it available in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

So which 6 countries have the highest smartphone adoption? Australia, UK, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and UAE all have more than 50% of their population on smartphones.  An additional seven countries - the US, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland - now have more than 40% smartphone penetration. These numbers show that a global mobile movement is happening as smartphone  adoption moves mainstream.  Mobile devices have become indispensable to people’s lives and are driving massive changes in consumer behavior.

Visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet today to:

thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet provides smartphone usage data for 40 countries

• Discover new mobile insights and create custom, presentation-ready charts.  You can compare across 40 countries, see year-over-year trends, or segment by demographics to understand specific  smartphone usage patterns  with our updated chart builder tool.
  
• Get the country level Executive Summary Reports.   Download a summary of the key research findings to learn how smartphones have transformed core consumer behaviors, including how we search, shop, keep ourselves entertained and navigate the world.  Country reports are available for the 26 countries in the 2012 research.
• Dive deeper with full data downloads.   Access the raw country level data for the 2012 research.

Global Findings from the 2012 Research
These are key highlights and findings from the 26 countries in the 2012 research:

Mobile moves mainstream as smartphone adoption advances rapidly around the world.  

Explore smartphone data patterns on thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet

• The UK (51%), Sweden (51%) and Norway (54%) all saw a dramatic increase of more than 20% in smartphone adoption in less than one year.  
• 52% of Australians own a smartphone, 15% more than did last year.
• Among the 26 countries, smartphone penetration was highest in the Middle East at 62% in the UAE and 60% in Saudi Arabia.  
• Argentina is starting to see  strong traction in smartphone adoption as nearly a quarter of the population (24%) uses a smartphone.

Consumers in emerging markets have some of the highest levels of mobile engagement.
New in 2012, we’ve added data for China, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  

• People in these countries are the biggest information seekers with 68% of smartphone users in China, 73% in Saudi Arabia and 72% in Argentina searching on their mobile device daily.
• Consumers in Egypt and Brazil are among the heaviest social networkers with 91% and 88% of smartphone users doing this.
• 59% of smartphone owners in China have made a purchase on their device, the highest among all countries in this study.

Looking for local information is a near universal smartphone behavior.
Consumers everywhere are using their smartphones to find businesses near them, then take action.

• 91% of Mexican smartphone owners look for local information and 88% take action.

• 58% of the French visit a business after looking for local information
• 48% of smartphone users in the UAE call a business after a local smartphone search.

Consumers are multi-tasking their media consumption.
There’s a clear global pattern of increasingly fragmented media attention as consumers shift between screens.

United States: Multi-tasking Mobile with other Media

Country Reports provide an executive summary of key smartphone findings
for the 26 countries in the 2012 research

• 80% of Japanese use their mobile device while consuming other media.  53% use their phones while watching TV and 30% while using the Internet on their computer.

• In the US, 51% use their phones while listening to music
• In Spain, 36% engage with mobile while reading a magazine.
• 75% in Brazil have performed a mobile search after seeing an offline ad.

Smartphones have made us smarter shoppers and influence purchase decisions.
Smartphones have  become an important shopping tool that impact if and where we make a purchase.

• 100% of smartphone owners in Japan use their phone to research a purchase.
• 36% of Egyptians have changed their mind about a purchase while in a store due to smartphone research.  
• People are researching items on their smartphones before making a purchase in other channels. 52% in Ireland end up making a  purchase on their computer and 37% in Argentina purchase in a store after researching on their smartphones.

We’ll be diving deep into regional data and insights over the next few days, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, visit www.thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet  to find answers to more of your questions about the mobile consumer.


Posted by: Dai Pham, Group Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads