Mobile Predictions for 2012

Nathan Kerry, VP Strategic Accounts

LOS ANGELES, CA January 5, 2012 – It’s that time of year again: the time to take stock, look back at the year that has passed and look ahead to the New Year and all of the promise that it holds. What does 2012 have in store for the mobile world? No one knows for sure, but in this series of posts, the experts at July Systems identify the top mobile trends and make predictions about what will take place in the ecosystem surrounding tablets and smartphones over the course of the year to come – and beyond.

Prediction #1: The war of the mobile Web vs. native applications will end in a draw.

Native apps and mobile web sites will continue to co-exist in the near future. Both sides of the mobile web versus native apps rivalry will agree to a truce as the lines between the two are blurred and mobile adoption continues to increase across the board. Higher adoption of smartphones will continue to drive increased usage of sophisticated mobile web sites, native apps, hybrid properties and web apps.

The absence of a true cross-platform technology to build native apps and the complexity of supporting various mobile technology platforms and operating systems – from Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and RIM’s BlackBerry – is causing many companies to focus on hybrid properties and web apps. That trend will continue to gain momentum in 2012 as companies seek to support a wide range of mobile devices.

Research firm Gartner predicts that this year data revenue will exceed voice revenue in mature markets such as Western Europe and North America. That trend is being driven by increasing mobile web and app usage among a growing number of smartphones users. In mature markets, smartphones first exceeded 50% of the total installed handset based around the beginning of 2011, according to Gartner, which predicts that smartphones could account for more than 90% of the install base in those developed regions by 2014.

Despite the growing prevalence of high-end smartphones, brands, retailers and publishers also need to cater to the lower-end and mid-tier handsets. Given that non-touch devices still represent a large percentage of the global install base, brands will have to continue to support both a non-touch and touchscreen strategy. Many brands that have deployed a single mobile web site will now start to depart from that strategy and develop both a touchscreen-optimized and a non-touch site. By doing so, they can increase investment in the touchscreen mobile website over time and slowly ramp down the non-touch experience as those types of devices are gradually phased out.

The bottom line is that in 2012, usage of native apps, mobile websites and web apps will all continue to grow without impeding the growth of one another. All of these mobile platforms will benefit as consumers use their mobile devices more and more with each passing day. For that reason, savvy brands, retailers, financial services companies and publishers will emphasize the mobile elements of their cross-platform engagement strategy.