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Mobile marketing researchers continually issue studies with unbelievable projections, then sell research reports to the industry that feeds them. In the current hot mobile commerce market, some research company’s forecasts are far from accurate.
In this morning’s Mobile Commerce Daily, for example, reporter Rimma Kats announced that Juniper Research recently projected mobile coupon revenues growing worldwide to $43 BILLION by 2016, five years from now.
Mickey Khan, Mobile Commerce’s Editor-in-Chief, questioned Rimma Katz in a You Tube video based on the publication’s article about this enormous growth rate projection.
According to Mickey, all of mobile commerce currently generates around $8 billion a year, leaving a $35 billion gap in the next five years only to reach the coupon forecast. View the short video below.
Mobile Research Accuracy in a Dynamic Market
No one doubts the difficulty of forecasting anything in the mobile industry. It’s a complicated ecosystem of handset manufacturers, distributors, carriers, aggregators, advertisers and mobile ad networks. That doesn’t even begin to count the FCC and other regulators that oversee the industry’s operations.
Who would have predicted four-five years ago that Apple’s iPhone would not only spawn a revolution in innovative mobile handsets, but also accelerate the growth of mobile marketing, advertising and m-commerce? Likewise, how many mobile research firms would have predicted a 43% Android smartphone market share in 2011 substantially surpassing the iPhone.
Yet, everyone in the business listens carefully to comScore, Juniper, Gartner and the other research firms that generate forecasts. The forecasts are indispensable to carriers, brands, advertisers, publishers and, yes, mobile users.
Mobile Growth Explosion
Mobile is revolutionary, disruptive and fragmented. It’s like wild horses that burst out of a barn. It’s a train traveling at 100 miles per hour. And while the horses started breaking down the barn and the train accelerated, most experts in marketing, advertising, commerce and media were writing articles about “the year of mobile” yet to come.
To the experts, mobile was a child waiting to grow up as a legitimate member of an established industry. Few dared to say otherwise, except visionaries who believed that a communications channel in the hands of six billion people meant something big was about to happen. The “year of mobile” arrived at the barn and train station before horses or trains left, while thousands of experts missed opportunities.
Except for Apple, after releasing the first iPhone, few mobile carriers, manufacturers (even Nokia) and industry watchers predicted the eye-bulging penetration of smartphones. In 2008-2009 with the recession, even the iPhone had a small 2%-3% share of the U.S. market, while mobile phone growth continued unabated worldwide.
Nokia, the low-end leader, started to worry about smartphones eating into market share only in 2009. And RIM, the BlackBerry folks in Canada, ignored the changing smartphone landscape until much later. Meanwhile, mobile ad networks and others in mobile marketing and advertising split a measly $1 billion dollars, while comScore, Gartner, Juniper and other mobile research companies generated conflicting revenue reports.
Now in the hallowed halls of Juniper Research, if you have $4,050 dollars ($2,837 Euros), you may purchase a 110 page report describing why mobile coupons will grow to $43 billion dollars in five years. (Oh, you also get 30 minutes of an analyst’s time to discuss the report.) Is Juniper correct or overoptimistic? Who knows?
Mobile Research Struggles with the Future
No one in the mobile industry or seers on a mountain top knows how fast mobile will grow. In many cases, mobile research forecasts come from knowledgeable experts. But even those who have studied this fast-moving industry will acknowledge that predicting revenues or growth in mobile communications is nearly impossible.
Unlike traditional industries, say clothing manufacturing, mobile growth is due to the imagination and brilliance of a few individuals who thought their ideas would excite the world. Apple, until the iPhone and the growth of personal mobility, probably thought laptops, iPods and other portable gadgets were the future. Then the iPhone arrived. Mobile users’ behaviors began changing as they realized the power of smart-computers in their pockets. Joy Liuzzo with InsightExpress, a research firm, has spoken several times about changing mobile behaviors on MobileBeyond.
Several years ago Google, the leader in search advertising, most likely thought search and information were the drivers of the future. Likewise, Microsoft, whom many claim missed the start of the mobile age, believed that its traditional software delivered in cardboard, would remain profitable.
Media delivery services–Comcast and the other cable companies, Directv, even AT&T–heard the knells of change from young start-ups like Netflix and Amazon.
Is mobile research necessary? Absolutely. Even the blind walking down the street need white canes, intersections that beep when lights change colors. Nevertheless, everyone in the mobile ecosystem to survive needs to listen more carefully to the horses breaking out of the barn and the trains leaving the station.
