Kony Solutions, Inc.’s Second Annual Mobile Marketing and Commerce Study
A KONY WHITE PAPER September 2011
Summary In its second annual survey Kony Solutions, Inc., the leading mobile platform provider, polled more than 100 Fortune 500 brands about their mobile computing challenges and strategic initiatives. Market data and intelligence were compiled from the retail, financial, media, and healthcare verticals to uncover the current mobile strategies, and future developments for some of the largest brands in the world. The 2010 iteration of this survey revealed many companies were still struggling to prove the value of the mobile platform to corporate stakeholders, 20% finding it difficult to procure funding for mobile projects. Most significantly brands struggled with developing comprehensive long-term strategies to encompass the breadth of devices and channels available now and in the future. This year proved no different, in fact developing across the ever-changing mobile landscape is considered the number one problem for companies. While the value of mobile is more readily recognized, with 80% of companies able to fund mobile initiatives with minimal effort, the implementation of long-term strategies is the greatest hindrance to full deployment.
Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
Mobile Funding: Easier Than Ever In the last year alone, there have been significant changes in funding for businesses in regards to mobile. In contrast to the 2010 survey results, in 2011 companies are finding it easier to get the necessary funding to develop and deploy their mobile offerings. The survey found 80% of companies feel it‟s possible to receive the necessary funding with reasonable or little effort, up from 73% in Kony‟s 2010 survey. Notably only 7% of respondents find it difficult to fund their mobile initiatives, a 20% decline from 2010.
The increased ease for procuring the necessary funds for mobile projects means stricter competition in the marketplace, along with a greater presence of apps. As such, corporations are developing more comprehensive mobile strategies that appropriately account for both the breadth and depth of mobile devices and channels. Device Priority: iPhone Still Reigns Supreme While Android‟s open system has outpaced iPhone in consumer adoption, the device continues to top most CMOs‟ priority list, but the gap between the two is closing. For the last several years, the urgency given to the iPhone has exceeded other operating systems. Last year iPhone surpassed all other operating system priorities that companies felt the need to urgently support by nearly 15%. This year 38% of Fortune 500s claimed that the iPhone is their number one priority operating system, with Android not far behind at 35%. Previously, Android and Blackberry had been tied for second priority. However, RIM‟s Blackberry device has fallen into third place, with only 18% of companies considering it a priority to develop offerings for, echoing the device‟s current market significance.
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Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
The vast change in popular operating systems in just one year is further evidence of an everevolving marketplace. In order to keep pace, brands are now tasked with developing offerings that span the breadth of devices on the market. Tablets: The Latest and Greatest‌? Although tablets are gaining popularity with consumers, less than a quarter of Fortune 500 brands are currently planning to deploy tablet offerings. Despite the iPadâ€&#x;s clear prominence in the market, only 2% of respondents believe developing for the iPad is a priority. Mobile Channels: The Web vs. App Debate Continues With the diverse mobile market, brands have come to recognize the importance of reaching consumers not only across a variety of devices, but channels as well. Despite HTML5 mobile web standards gaining traction, mobile web and native apps still top the list in terms of corporate offering priorities, with nearly 30% planning a mobile website and 28% preparing to deploy a downloadable mobile application. SMS campaigns remain the lowest priority channel for brands at 18%.
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Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
Mobile Development: Still Planning Despite the mobile platformâ€&#x;s increasing prominence for consumers as a banking, shopping and information gathering tool, only 10% of brands surveyed have fully deployed all aspects of their mobile offering, a decrease of 3% from 2010. Despite readily available funding, brands are unable to rapidly deploy full offerings to the range of devices, channels and variety of features and functions available. Seventy one percent are in the planning stage, or early stages of launching their mobile offerings. This is a 15% increase from the previous yearâ€&#x;s survey, further proof that brands have come to recognize the significant revenue opportunities that lie within the mobile market.
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Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
Mobile Offerings: Marketing Is Key Mobile continues to provide brands with opportunities for valuable touch-points with consumers. Features such as store locators and rating systems help to keep customers in touch and in the loop with their favorite businesses. Other app features, such as coupons, give customers incentives to purchase and repurchase products, all while continuing to use a companyâ€&#x;s mobile application. While consumers are expected to increasingly rely on mobile for retail purchasing, 32% of companies remain focused on leveraging mobile for marketing and providing information, 27% of the Fortune 500s surveyed plan to provide customer support/service, while 29% plan to provide sales/commerce capabilities. Despite market expectations for mobile wallets to gain traction within the next year, only 2% of companies plan to provide mobile wallet capabilities. This lack of long term strategic planning could prove costly for brands. Leveraging a true mobile development platform that enables companies to deploy across all the channels, operating systems and provide a variety of activities to consumers now and in the future will provide maximum ROI on their mobile investment.
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Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
Mobile Challenges The diverse mobile landscape continues to pose the greatest challenge to businesses looking to engage consumers on the mobile platform. Thirty eight percent of companies cited developing applications across many operating systems and device types, while 29% felt their biggest challenge is keeping up with changes in the mobile market.
In addition, 18% felt that supporting connectivity and technical updates were their greatest challenge, while only 5% were most concerned about updating existing offerings. The uncertainties in the mobile market pose a unique challenge for businesses. The breadth of devices on the market has made traditional individual device development unwieldy and overwhelmingly costly. A platform that offers a single application definition will enable ubiquitous deployment without the added time to market and cost of conventional development tactics.
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Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
Conclusion The value of the mobile medium is clear—there is undeniable potential for additional revenue streams, deepened brand loyalty and consumer engagement. However the breakneck pace at which the mobile market is developing makes it challenging for companies to not only connect with consumers across all devices and channels, but also develop comprehensive long-term strategies. Leveraging a platform that employs a singular code base allows for ubiquitous deployment without compromising native functionality. In addition, the ability to effectively make universal changes enables companies to keep pace with market changes, creating a true competitive edge.
About Kony Kony enables enterprises to offer consumers and employees feature-rich mobile applications in less time and at lower costs than any other solution. Leveraging a single application definition, applications are designed and developed just once, in a device-independent manner, and deployed across more than 9,000 devices, 15 operating systems and multiple channels, including native applications, HTML5 and device-optimized mobile web, SMS, web gadgets, kiosks, and tablets without compromises. Kony‟s unique platform is proven to future-proof a company‟s mobile investment by enabling applications to be changed once for all channels, ensuring faster adoption of new operating systems and standards as they are introduced, while eliminating maintenance, upgrade and future development costs. In 2011 Kony was positioned as a “Visionary” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Consumer Application Platforms (MCAP) report by William Clark, Michael J. King and Linda Dozier. Kony has been named a Gartner Cool Vendor, a „Most Innovative Company of the Year‟ by the American Business Awards and was chosen as one of Fast Company’s 100 innovative Apple-affiliated achievers
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Mobile Marketing & Commerce Survey Findings
For more information, please visit www.kony.com. Connect with Kony on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Kony Solutions, Inc. 7380 West Sand Lake Road #390 Orlando, FL 32819 Tel: 1-321-293-KONY (5669) Toll free: 1-888-323-9630 Fax: 1-321-293-0161 www.kony.com
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