App success leads to a Mobile Transactional site…

Budget Hotel chain Premier Inn are putting together a mobile website that will show room vacancies, a booking area and an order confirmation screen following the great success that its app had in generating room bookings.

The Hotel Chain has stated that the app developed a million pounds in bookings. The app was launched in January and has been very successful.  This has then generated the interest in a mobile friendly website that will include an order confirmation page to book the room. The website will be very similar to the app that was launched on the iPhone, android and Nokia handsets.

The App was produced because Premier Inn mobile users found the traditional website very tricky to navigate on the handset. This was preventing bookings.  The app was downloaded 250,000 times, it was also linked into the GPS systems on many handsets so that it would show the nearest hotel at any given time.

Research shows that the app really helped the business audience when booking a room last minute. However, most bookings were done via the iPhone approximately 3 months in advance.  The developer of the app is also been included onto the development team for the new mobile site. Key areas will be to keep the iPhone users business coming in and also make sure that the user experience is perfect for Blackberry’s, Androids and Nokia’s.

Nokia go backwards but the Microsoft deal is still on…

Despite declaring better than expected profits for the first quarter, Nokia’s share price is down but Microsoft is still involved.

The share price and profits have both recently fell. The share price fell by 4% to 29% and the profits fell by 1% which is about £304m.

Nokia have stated that the long awaited deal with Microsoft will change all that, as they attempt to reverse their fortunes.  Microsoft will be giving advice and developing a new Smartphone that will take on the giants of Apple.

Many investors have welcomed the news of the deal and this has helped the share price a bit but as always proof is in the pudding.

According to the chief executive, Nokia have moved along their process from defining the strategy to implementing it, confirming the deal with Microsoft and designing the product.

Nokia have admitted that they were slow to match the response from the competitors in the Smartphone market.  Just to rub salt into the wounds – Apple unveiled a 95% increase in profits in Q1. Nokia have it all to do now perhaps. Nokia have sold more handsets in Q1 than Apple, but its price that has brought Apple forward, an average Apple’s wholesale price was $585 more than Nokia.

One of the things that Microsoft will be doing is dropping the Symbian software and using their own as the Symbian is occasionally slow and not what the users want.

The Chief Executive also stated that the finalisation with Microsoft will then focus on execution, but they are not out of the woods yet and difficult times are still ahead.

Yahoo! Peruses the Mobile Market with Assistance from Nokia

Nokia have recently confirmed their agreement with NAVTEQ, who will supply their mapping service and a partnership with Yahoo! who will provide a Mail and Chat service. So, what can we expect?

Yahoo! has in the past has been traditionally quite slow in jumping onto the Mobile Market bus. While Google and Microsoft have developed their own OS, Yahoo! has not been as productive. However, better late than never – Yahoo! has got some help from a very popular and known mobile manufacture that will seriously boost its efforts.

The key aspect that Yahoo! has secured with NAVTEQ and Nokia alliance is that the much recent revised maps and Yahoo! Chat and Mail will be pre installed into all future handsets. This set up is very similar to Google Search being the default search engine on the iPhone, but is it too late?

This market is very competitive and Nokia have locked horns with the likes of Apple, HTC and Samsung on many occasions. So, in summary we have 2 separate business types that are trying to complement each other in their own heavy changing markets. Could it therefore be possible that this partnership could distract either Yahoo! or Nokia from its core business activity and so be detrimental to them?

Having considered all these aspects and elements to the partnership, it potentially might not alter any market position for Nokia or Yahoo!. There is an argument that the main mobile marketing battle is currently raging between the OS for iPhone and Android. The Apple iPhone is the most popular consumer device and this has pushed Google’s search platform further.

The Partnership has a massive hill to climb to compete with Apple and Google. For sure, it may generate a spike in interest and Yahoo! will have their brand name on all supporting devices generating more visibility, but will that worry its competitors enough?

Just to make Yahoo’s intentions a bit harder, Bing have been working towards being a default search engine on other devices, by using offers to users, manufactures and distributors that may become fruitful in the future. However, at present Google is the dominate search engine and without needing to check a crystal ball, they are likely to stay dominate.

Yahoo’s major problem is that the search is not strong enough, while their homepage is littered with news, videos, sounds, popular content and a very valuable email following. Breaking into a fierce market with nothing new will be very difficult.

The mobile internet is a new battlefield for the search giants to attack and hold. With their partnerships with Nokia and NAVTEQ, Yahoo! will be rolling into battle in good stead and moral, assuming that there is something to fight for? We already know the brand name and the financial weight that Apple has and they have stamped their authority on the mobile internet ground. Can Yahoo compete, with or without Nokia?

Android overtake Smartphone, depending on how you wish to see it!

While the Smartphone war is still raging, early indications show that the Android OS is holding a larger market share. So is Android OS beating Apple OS 4?

The Nielson research company have confirmed that the Android OS is the more popular operating system among the Smartphone users. The Android has reached 29% of all Smartphone’s, in contrast with 27% of Apples OS 4 and 27% RIM BlackBerry editions.

However, RIM BlackBerry and Apple were leading the pack in terms of manufacturing the hardware. Plus, RIM BlackBerry and Apple OS do have an advantage because they make and release their own handsets with their own OS systems.

The Windows Phone 7 and the Android OS use third party manufacturing companies including Samsung, Motorola, HTC and HP to build phones that the their respective operating systems are installed onto. This then really boosts the number of users of the Android OS when it runs on handsets from Samsung, HTC and HP.

The Apple OS is installed on to all of the iPhone products so their marketing share will all depend upon unit sales.  In contrast, Android depends on other manufacturers sales efforts.

This does pose the question, have Android users bought a specific phone that has this OS, or did they buy Android regardless of what it was installed on to? If the latter is the reason then their market share of 29% could increase which would be bad news for Apple and RIM BlackBerry.

One operating system that has not been mentioned is the Symbian OS system that is currently managed by Nokia and has been installed onto many Nokia handsets including the N series (N95 – N80). Popularity of this OS in 2004 and 2005 was immediate. However, the Symbian software was reported to be occasionally unreliable and slow between functions. With regards to market share, it was near the top – it now holds only 2%, despite supporting great handsets like the Nokia 5320, X5 and N86.

So, does this prove that the consumers buy the OS and not the phone? The Android has the highest market share when installed into good handsets.  Nokia have always put together handsets that have been easy to use and stylish, but the OS has underperformed.

Another argument could be that Apple and RIM BlackBerry have 27% market share each because of their sales and marketing, and their OS is their own. So if the market share of their two were added together that would make 54%, more than Android.

If consumers do buy the OS, more manufacturers will want the Android on board as it boosts unit sales, so the market share of Android will also increase taking more business away from RIM BlackBerry and Apple. Having said that, the Android is supported across HTC, Motorola and Samsung, three major branded platforms where as the Apple and RIM BlackBerry only supports their own brands.

In summary, Android has more users through its branded manufactures. However, Apple and RIM BlackBerry have possibly performed better as all activities are done in house, with own handsets and OS.

So, the Handset (i.e. iPhone, BlackBerry or Samsung) or the OS (Apple, RIM or Android)? What’s it to be?

Microsoft + Nokia = a possible improvement for ‘Bing’ or Not?

As we have mentioned before, the Smartphone market is getting inundated with many manufacturers including Samsung, Apple and Nokia, all wanting a bit if the action. The more Smartphone’s that are in people hands, the more mobile searches will be done, so Microsoft and Nokia coming together is an excellent opportunity to push ‘Bing’ forward and challenge the other big search engine operatives.

Bing has been growing steadily, but disappointingly slowly over the past few years.  There have been many marketing adventures and technological investments to promote Bing’s growth, but the response was poor and not what Microsoft were expecting. The development of Bing had been restricted by the release of the Android phone, and the work to increase market share that Microsoft have (4.2%) in the Smartphone sales.  However, the stated market share has been restricted mainly because Apple has kept Google as there default search engine provider.

Nokia are a massive supplier of Smartphone’s and are arguably the largest in the world, so you would imagine that using Bing as a default search engine provider on a Nokia Smartphone would be just the thing. The ground work has been done by Nokia because of its global handset sales. Bing would have a market place and a significant leap forward in mobile search numbers. But, and there is a big but, by having a default search engine on a handset does not mean that it can’t be changed to a competitor just like you can change your search operator on a desktop PC, so there is no guaranteed usage.

If Microsoft had secured the default search engine with Apple – things could have been a lot different. Perhaps Microsoft will nail this chance to advance Bing as a search engine and not miss it. Nokia Smartphone’s did out-sell Apple iPhones by 10 to 1 last year so it could cause a problem for other search engines particularly on the mobile search market if Microsoft and Nokia can collaborate to make this work. Let’s not forget that Yahoo is also a partner of Microsoft, with a very popular email and chat service that could be installed into future Nokia handsets.

This topic could rumble on for many months and possibly years, but it’s an excellent window of opportunity for ‘Bing’ to development market share and start the growth.