Smart Phone Mobile Market Share in the US is still under 20%

With all the hype about the new full browser touch-screen phones out there like the iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, Blueberry, Pre, G1, G2,  and G^infinity, today’s smart phones mobile market share in the US is only 20% or less. Some estimates have it at 15% others at 25%. And with all new phones being shipped today, still only 20% of those orders are are smart phones, which should keep the ratio as is for a little longer than we like.

My take is if you are really serious about mobile marketing and if your target demographics are main stream middle America and if you are looking to generate volume, then an SMS and a Feature Phone WAP site strategy makes sense. There is no question that users who have a touch screen device tend to interact much differently and are much more engaged leading to higher CTRs and more purchases, but SMS still has the highest penetration among all other mobile services [see chart below.] Also having a mobile website that will render nicely on all phones [not just smart ones] becomes an essential part of the user experience that can build audience not drive them away from the brand. That’s why MocoSpace is the largest mobile site in the US in terms of users and traffic.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Mobile Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.