Best Buy Mobile is a retail giant selling mobile phones and accessories With high-end smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone, the Palm Pre, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, Motorola’s Droid and Google’s other Android devices creating buzz among consumers, retailers are expecting a surge in handset revenue in 2010. So what does the top mobile executive at the country’s leading consumer electronics retailer think about the mobile medium? Mobile Commerce Daily’s Dan Butcher interviewed Scott Anderson , senior director at Best Buy Mobile, Minneapolis, MN, about his projections for the mobile retail space in 2010. Here is what he had to say: From Best Buy Mobile’s perspective, what were the most popular smartphones in 2009, and what do you expect to be the most popular handsets in 2010?   In terms of 2009, there was not one phone that topped all others in terms of popularity. Obviously, the iPhone was very successful, and we see that continuing in 2010. But 2009 was also the first big year for Android phones, and we saw some really hot devices on that platform including the HTC Hero on Sprint, HTC My Touch on T-Mobile and Motorola Droid on Verizon. Palm had a resurgence with the Pre, and BlackBerry continued to put out great products for customers. So, it was a very active year for cell phones, and it would be impossible to land on just one device. For 2010, Android will continue to be a big platform for all carriers, in addition to what I said earlier about iPhone. The same goes for BlackBerry. Will Google’s Android challenge Apple’s iPhone for smartphone OS marketshare? What is your opinion of the prospects for RIM’s BlackBerry, Palm’s WebOS, Nokia’s Symbian and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile?   Customers will ultimately make the call in terms of what sticks and what doesn’t, over time. Obviously, Android has certainly earned a lot of attention this year. At Best Buy Mobile, we believe that customers like all of the increasing choices and options available in mobile phones. The reality is consumers have varying needs and tastes, and thus their opinions are very different. Some want a smartphone for work while others want to use it to stay connected to their social networks. We don’t look at it so much as certain platforms winning marketshare, as much as it is platforms serving different needs for different people. What levels of adoption do you expect for other types of mobile devices such as media players, netbooks and hotspot products? We fully expect smartphones to continue to become more popular and more accessible for all customers. That is the real focus at Best Buy Mobile right now: helping consumers understand all of the smartphone options—from platforms to carriers to manufacturers to no-contract—and get them the device that best meets their needs. At the same time, we expect consumers to continue to adopt and adapt to new technology, especially with broadband options and netbooks, as they look for new and better ways to stay connected to family, friends and work.  Will applications continue to grow in popularity in 2010? Most definitely. Applications will continue to be a big part of the cell phone story in 2010 and a key reason why smartphones will continue to gain in popularity and usage.

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Best Buy Mobile pushes for awareness on smartphone options

Mplayit has launched an Android application store on Facebook that offers more than 15,000 cross-platform applications. The company intends to copy the claimed success of its iPhone Arcade on Facebook. Mplayit said it is harder to find applications for Android smartphones and its Facebook store will address that challenge. “It’s funny how much attention the iPhone gets when 95 percent of people don’t have one,” said Michael Powers, founder/CEO of Mplayit, San Francisco. “Because you’re seeing Android devices on multiple carriers from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG and the rest, we think that Android will overtake iPhone in the near future.  “And because there’s so much room for improvement on Android app discovery, we’re betting big on Android,” he said. Mplayit is a global provider of social merchandising for mobile games and applications.  Casual playing The Mplayit platform lets consumers discover mobile applications by tapping their trusted network of friends for recommendations, ratings and reviews. Mplayit targets 90 percent of consumers with application-capable devices that have never downloaded an application. Mr. Powers said early-adopting technologists are pretty much tapped out, but the real growth opportunity in the application market is with more casual consumers.  Casual consumers are on Facebook multiple times a day, primarily to kill time. Mplayit said it makes it extremely easy for these casual users to find, try and buy applications for their mobile device. Slashing trends Visitors to Mplayit’s Web-based application store will find promotional opportunities for application developers. “Every viral phenomenon starts with a seed, and we provide the most viral environment possible for developers to break out and get noticed,” Mr. Powers said. “That said, we regularly discover compelling new apps making the rounds that we’d never heard of.  “These probably wouldn’t have gotten noticed without our platform, and if we can help those apps along, so much the better for everyone,” he said. Mplayit’s top shared applications for Android devices over the holidays included ReaderScope, Google Sky Map, Power Manager, Barcode Beasties and Google Goggles. For the iPhone, top shared applications included Finger Physics, iFarm, Puzzle Paint 3D, Sony Music Holiday Yule Log and Tap Tap Tattoo. Top BlackBerry shared applications included Call Blocker Pro, The Hockey News, Firefighter’s Calculator, Vlingo and Time Mobile. While the top applications are a mix of paid and free, Mr. Powers said prices are trending downward toward free, with ad support. He said he expects the trend to accelerate as in-application monetization opportunities increase. “Given the way everything else has unfolded in mobile, the shift to free apps will happen faster than any of us expect,” Mr. Powers said. “Of the free apps, most volume will be in the ad-supported apps, but most revenues will be made via in-app purchases.”

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Mplayit expands Facebook-based mobile app store to include Android

Here are the top 5 columns of 2009 that Mobile Commerce Daily published. Worth a second or third read, these works of opinion and analysis from industry experts spell out the issues and opportunities in the mobile ecosystem. One more thing: the columns are listed chronologically. Just in case … Guardian newspaper’s paid app won’t resolve advertising shortfall issue December 17, 2009 By Andy Bovingdon Charging for mobile application downloads is not the answer to declining ad revenues. Entire article Retail and mobile: Where to start December 7, 2009 By Gary Schwartz Instead of focusing on consumers and how they are leveraging mobile in their stores, retail CMOs are investigating widgets and applications that have little to no reach or frequency in their consumer base. Entire article Take a tri-messaging approach to mobile marketing November 20, 2009 By Blaine Mathieu How do you turn a common short code, keyword and message into a viable marketing campaign? Entire article How mobile payments can help merchants in a recession November 3, 2009 By Stephen Gibb Using the ubiquitous mobile phone, merchants and retailers can send payment reminders by SMS in order to decrease their expenditure on debt collection even further in this recession. Entire article Online retailers must look to mobile commerce October 15, 2009 By Ted Hoy As the usage of next-generation mobile phones grows and mobile technology advances, bringing ecommerce to consumers will mean delivering it to their mobile devices. Entire article

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Top 5 industry-expert columns of 2009

I’ve got nothing but love for each, and believe the combination of Apple and Google has created a tipping point for mobile marketing . Here are five things you need to know about how iPhone & Android have changed mobile advertising and why marketers …. By offering easy click-to-call actions, we have seen +5% conversion results for advertisers. A retailer may be better served by helping the on-the-go mobile user with location and mapping actions to get to their store, …

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Mobile Advertising: 5 Things You Need to Know to Succeed in 2010 …

If numerous press reports are to be believed the FTC plans to investigate Google’s proposed acquisition of AdMob. If so the FTC has the opportunity to request revenue figures from the 15-20 big mobile ad networks serving the US market, hitherto unavailable to all those mobile pundits that have been speculating about who is the biggest. This means the FTC can put a stop to all the speculation… speculation that is unhelpful to a) Google/AdMob who don’t want to be seen as dominant; b) all the other networks that serve the US market; c) advertisers and publishers that might be mislead into thinking size is everything when choosing an ad network. read more

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Dear FTC, if you probe Google’s purchase of AdMob, please end speculation: give us real market share of mobile ad networks