Mobile Media Intelligence: research on mobile TV, video, music, gaming and advertising

Mobile Games H2 2012: GungHo dominates in Japan | 22 Mar 13 tags › Q4 was a record quarter for mobile games revenues as the growing adoption of smartphones, tablets and implementation of freemium business models boosted mobile games publishers in all major markets. Leading publicly listed Western publishers such as EA and Gameloft reported relatively strong growth in Q4, while new entrants such as NaturalMotion and Super Cell also made an impact at the top of the Western mobile games charts. In Japan, online and mobile games publisher GungHo leapt to the top of the charts with its hit title Puzzles and Dragons helping drive quarterly mobile games revenues to $155m. Japanese publishers Capcom and Konami also reported year-on-year growth in 2012, as did their Korean counterparts including Com2uS and Gamevil. Community platforms such as DeNA's Mobage began to make an impact in Western markets (though nowhere near the same level as in Japan) and a number of publishers including EA Mobile, Gameloft, and Com2uS continue to push their community and social platforms.

Social and Communications app focus: Application Stores Market Monitor H2 2012 | 18 Feb 13 tags › While games continued to dominate the upper reaches of the top grossing charts on Apple's App Store and Google Play throughout 2012, applications in the Communications and Social Networking categories have been making an growing impact in terms of downloads and revenues in the second half of 2012. Social networking, instant messaging, photo sharing, and VoIP apps have helped drive this category's download success. Dating apps have been the key driver of revenues on Apple's App Store, where established online players and new mobile entrants have taken advantage of in-app billing to charge mobile users for premium subscription access. Revenue success has been less notable on Google Play, where companies often take advantage of that store's greater openness to establish a direct billing relationship with consumers rather than charge in-app.

Smartphone OEM Content Strategy: A Necessary Evil | 10 Jan 13 tags › With the smartphone wars heating up, Google seeking a more unified Android experience, and Windows Phone's uniform interface, differentiation amongst Android and Windows Phone smartphones is more difficult. As a result, OEMs are exploring using content services to differentiate their devices from competitors. This report investigates the strategies handset manufacturers are using for their content services.

Blackberry shifts focus to developing markets | 15 May 13 tags › Blackberry Messenger (BBM) will become available to Android 4.0+ and iPhone users this summer. Blackberry says that the popular messaging service currently has 60 million monthly active users globally....

LINE moves beyond messaging with games revenue success | 15 May 13 tags › NHN Japan's free social messaging service LINE reported more than 150 million worldwide subscribers for Q1 2013. The social messaging and gaming app is available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry...

Barnes and Noble boldly brings Google Play apps to Nook tablets | 07 May 13 tags › US bookseller Barnes and Noble (B&N) has partnered Google to bring its Google Play content store alongside Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Music services to its range of Nook HD and Nook HD+...

Eight Mobile Trends for 2013 and the Strategies to Win | 19 Feb 13 tags › The pace of innovation in mobile remains ferocious as the mobile market becomes the key battleground for digital. Here, we identify eight trends that will resonate throughout 2013 and the strategies that companies must adopt as a result to be successful.

Monetising Mobile Media | 19 Feb 13 tags › The strategies to monetise mobile apps, music, games, video through in-app purchases, downloads and mobile advertising.