As we know, tablets are becoming more and more popular as the top choice for mobile commerce. People are more comfortable using tablets to do their mobile shopping and computing than they do smartphones. Smartphones can, of course, be more convenient but the tablet has a bigger screen and often better functionality. Smartphones will always be used for handheld commerce, but tablets have become a very common form of mobile surfing. Millenial Media has released a report called the September Mobile Mix, and all of their research within focuses on the subject of tablets. The report focuses on how consumers are using tablets, and which ones are working best for mobile marketing campaigns.
Millenial Media, a mobile advertising and mobile media platform, stated in their report the top tablets in the market, ranking them by ad impressions. In first place, of course, came the Apple iPad, which has been the fan favorite for a long time now. The Samsung Galaxy followed the iPad, putting it in second place for best tablet. After that came the Kindle Fire, then the Acer Iconia, and finally the Motorola Xoom. What surprised me most about the results was the third place spot that the Kindle Fire took, considering the various new devices they have recently announced. However, it is likely that once these devices start to become used more, Kindle Fire will take second place.
Another focus of the report was how tablets are being used, that is, how people are connecting to the internet to create these ad impressions. The results showed an astounding 95% of tablet ad impressions took place over a WiFi network. Apparently, regardless of the option to use a data plan with these tablet devices, people choose WiFi most often, showing that they are using their tablets at home, at the office, or at Starbucks. With WiFi, people do not have to stress about their data usage, and they can shop and download as much and as long as they desire.
The top apps for tablets in Q2, which is the time frame that the report covers, were in the categories of Games, Music, and Entertainment, which is no surprise considering the results were the same in Q1.
So, from these results, it becomes apparent that tablets are continuing to be good competition for smartphones in mobile ad impressions. The report shows that 60% of iPad owners and 70% of Kindle owners used smartphones that ran on different platforms. Tablet owners do not become loyal to the operating systems that their devices run on, but rather the devices themselves. For marketers, it may be important to consider the most popular devices alongside the most popular platforms.
The Mobile Mix is a free report from Millenial Media, and is available on their website. Take a look at it yourself to learn more about the on-goings of the tablet market.
