There are more than a billion mobile subscribers in China

"Total telephone subscribers saw a net increase of 9.91 mln in February to reach 1.291 bln. Mobile subscribers grew by 10.33 mln to 1.007 bln, and fixed-line subscribers dropped by 419,000 to 284.29 mln. Broken down by traditional fixed-line and PHS, the PHS subscriber base declined by 595,000 subcribers to 16.34 mln, while traditional (i.e. non-PHS) fixed-line subscribers increased by 176,000 to 267.95 mln. 7.32 mln new 3G subscribers were added in February to reach a total of 143.92 mln.
A total of 71.03 bln SMS messages were sent during the month of February, bringing the total for the first 2 months of 2012 to 156.59 bln, a 7.6% increase over the figure during the same period of 2011."
Source:  Data from the Chinese Ministry of Industry & Information Technology, reported by Marbridge Daily, 30th March 2012

Blackberry maker RIM lost $125m in Q4 2011

"Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) has reported a quarterly loss, due in part to falling revenues on the back of weak smartphone shipments.
The Canadian company made a net loss for the three months to 3 March of $125m (£78m), compared with a profit of $934m a year earlier.
Revenues fell to $4.2bn from $5.2bn.
The firm also suggested it would refocus on the corporate market rather than on individual consumers.
[...]
Shipments of BlackBerry smartphones in the quarter fell to 11.1 million, down 21% from the previous three-month period.
Shipments of the company's PlayBook tablets hit 500,000, largely due to substantial discounting.
For the full financial year, the company made a net profit of $1.2bn, down from $3.4bn in the previous year."

Source:  BBC News, 30th March 2012

iPad users spend over $70,000 a day on newspaper & magazine content

"iPad users are willing to pay for premium content offered by newspapers and magazines in the Newsstand category. The category launched only six months ago, however more than 70k USD per day is already being made by the top 100 grossing Newsstand applications in the United States."

Source:  Distimo blog, 27th March 2012

62% of iPhone 4S owners use Siri several times a week

"Parks Associates' consumer study of Siri users revealed several interesting pieces of data. Here are some additional points we found intriguing:
Of iPhone 4s users, 62% use Siri for some function at least several times a week, including 35% of respondents who report daily use.  The least used functions are playing a video, scheduling a meeting, or playing music."

Source:  Blog post by Parks Associates, 28th March 2012

Half of American homes own at least one Apple product

"Half of all U.S. households own at least one Apple product, according to CNBC’s All-America Economic survey.
That’s more than 55 million homes with at least one iPhone, iPad, iPod or Mac computer. And one-in-10 homes that aren’t currently in that group plan to join it in the next year.
But Apple doesn’t have to worry about brand saturation any time soon. Americans don’t stop with just one device. Homes that own least one Apple, own an average of three. Overall, the average household has 1.6 Apple devices, with almost one-quarter planning to buy at least one more in the next year."
Source:  CNBC, 28th March 2012

Domino's Pizza generated £1m in sales through its mobile platform in one week

"Domino’s has announced that it took over £1m in sales through its mobile platform in a single week in Q1 2012.
In total e-commerce sales accounted for 50.6% of UK sales in the 13 week period up to March 25 2012, up 44.5% year-on-year to £59.3m.
Mobile payments made up 16.4% of total online sales, a slight increase on reports last month that the pizza company took 13% of digital sales through a tablet or smartphone."

Source:  Econsultancy, 28th March 2012

31% of US online ad impressions aren't seen

"comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released full study results from its U.S.-based vCE Charter Study involving online advertising campaigns for 12 premium national advertisers. The study found that, in many cases, a large portion of ad impressions are not delivered according to plan, and that the quality of ad delivery can vary greatly based on a variety of factors, including site, placement, creative and targeting strategy. The study evaluated ad delivery based on a several key dimensions, including whether or not the ads were delivered in-view, to the right audience, in the right geography, in brand safe environments and absent of fraud. The complete results are included in a complimentary white paper, which can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.comscore.com/vce-charter-study
[...]
The vCE Charter Study includes a variety of detailed findings that shed light on the current state of online ad delivery and its implications for different participants in the online advertising market. Key findings include:
In-View Rates are Eye-Opening. The study showed that 31% of ads were not in-view, meaning they never had an opportunity to be seen. There was also great variation across sites where the campaigns ran, with in-view rates ranging from 7% to 100% on a given site. This variance illustrates that even for major advertisers making premium buys there is a lot of room for improvement.
Targeting Audiences Beyond Demographics Can be Powerful. Generally, campaigns that had very basic demographic targeting objectives performed well with regard to hitting those targets. For example, those with an objective of reaching people in a particular broad age range did so with 70% of their impressions. Predictably, as additional demographic variables were added to the targeting criteria (e.g. income + gender), accuracy rates of the ad delivery declined. However, the results also showed that 37% of all impressions were delivered to audiences with behavioral profiles that were relevant to the brand (i.e. consumers with demonstrated interests in categories, such as food, auto or sports). One campaign had 67% of its impressions viewed by the target behavioral segment.
The Content in Which An Ad Runs Can Create Problems for Any Brand. Of the campaigns analyzed, 72% had at least some impressions that were delivered adjacent to objectionable content. While this did not translate to a large number of impressions on an absolute basis (141,000 impressions across 980 domains), it is important to note that 92,000 people were exposed to these impressions. This demonstrates that brand safety should be of concern to all advertisers.
Fraud is the Elephant in the Digital Room. Fraud is an undeniably large and growing problem in digital advertising. The results showed that an average of 0.16% of impressions across all campaigns was delivered to non-human agents from the IAB spiders & bots list. Although this percentage might appear negligible, there are two important considerations to keep in mind. Only the most basic forms of inappropriate delivery were addressed in this study. When additional, more sophisticated types of fraud are considered, the problem will only get larger. Like brand safety, fraud should be an important concern for all advertisers.
Digital Ad Economics: The Good Guys Aren't Necessarily Winning. The study showed that there was little to no correlation between CPM and value being delivered to the advertiser. For example, ad placements with strong in-view rates are not getting higher CPMs than placements with low in-view rates. Similarly, ads that are doing well at delivering to a primary demographic target are not receiving more value than those that are not. In other words, neither ad visibility nor the quality of the audience reached is currently reflected in the economics of digital advertising."
Source:  Press release from comScore, 26th March 2012
Note - comScore released similar research earlier in the year.  I'll repeat the note I made at the time:
While this research is valid, it's worth mentioning the different ad trading models.  Most ads are not bought on a 'cost per view' (CPM) model, but are bought on a cost per click (CPC) or cost per action (CPA) basis.  This means that the advertisers for these campaigns don't pay for the ads until there is a click or a specified action - like a sale or a registration - so they are not being charge anything for ads that aren't seen. 
Part of the job of the agency is to ensure that the ads bought on a CPM basis appear in good positions - that is 'in view' making the site push the other ads down to the bottom of the page.  Similarly with ads appearing in unsafe content - part of the job of the agency is to make sure that this does not happen.

'3' accounts for over 40% of the UK's mobile data traffic

"Over 40% of mobile data being used in the UK runs across Three’s network with nearly all of its new customers signing up to contracts with smartphones, according to the operator’s CEO David Dyson.
Speaking earlier today at the Westminster eForum, he said traffic on Three’s network, one of the few to offer unlimited data packages, doubled in the past 12 months to hit 6m GB a year, with “virtually 100%” of new customers signing up for smartphone contracts."

Source:  NMA, 27th March 2012

30m NFC-enabled phones were sold in 2011

"According to a new research report by Berg Insight, global sales of handsets featuring Near Field Communication (NFC) increased ten-fold in 2011 to 30 million units. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 87.8 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 700 million units in 2016. The global rise in smartphone adoption is also driving higher attach rates for other wireless connectivity technologies in handsets including GPS, Bluetooth and WLAN. These connectivity technologies are already a standard feature on high-end smartphones and most medium- and low-end models. Declining costs will also enable broader integration in the featurephone segment that is rapidly gaining smartphone-like functionality. The attach rate for GPS among GSM/WCDMA/LTE handsets reached 31 percent in 2011 and grew to 38 percent for all air interface standards. Shipments of WLAN-enabled handsets have more or less doubled annually in the past four years and the attach rate increased to 33 percent in 2011."

Source:  Press release from Berg Insight, 26th March 2012

Earlier - 35m NFC-enabled phones were shipped in 2011.  Alternative (& not necessarily contradictory) figures from IMS Research

Chrome was the world's most used browser on March 16th

"It may only have been for a single day, but according to StatCounter Google Chrome finally managed to surpass Internet Explorer to become the world’s most used web browser.
On Sunday, March 16th, Chrome temporarily slid ahead of IE with a share of just over 32%. Weekends have historically seen a downturn in IE usage. As people wind up their work week and spend more time on their home computers, they’re more likely to use an alternative browser. IE still maintains a dominant position in corporate environments, but that too has begun to change.
Over the past year, Chrome has steadily climbed while IE continues to fall. Initially folks thought that Google’s rapid rise was being fueled by Firefox defections, but Mozilla has only seen a drop of about 5% — while IE is down more than 10%. A second chart from StatCounter tells the story: those IE peaks and plateaus are clearly on a downward trend.
It’s important to note that StatCounter doesn’t correct its usage figures to account for one detail that could skew the numbers slightly in Google’s favor. Speculative pre-rendering (which arrived  in the Omnibox in Chrome 17) and Instant Pages support (which appeared in Chrome 13) both cause Chrome to send additional traffic to web servers that may never result in an actual visit from a user."

Source:  Geek.com, 22nd March 2012

Mobile game Cut The Rope has been downloaded more than 100m times

"Global gaming company ZeptoLab today announced the release of its award-winning, physics-based game, Cut the Rope, in the Mac App Store. The game, which has been optimized for MacOS, features stunning high-resolution artwork and innovative game mechanics that have been optimized for computer gameplay.
With more than 100 million downloads, Cut the Rope has seen great success on both mobile phones and tablets. Now, with the MacOS version, players take on the challenge of cutting ropes, popping bubbles, collecting stars and feeding candy to a little green monster named Om Nom on a much bigger screen. The levels on Cut the Rope for MacOS have been specifically tailored for landscape screen orientation, and the game retains its striking, crisp images on monitors up to 2560×1440 resolution."

Source:  Press release from ZeptoLab, 22nd February 2012

People who engage with social media while watching TV watch more live TV as a result

"A new study from iModerate Research Technologies, a leading qualitative research firm, shows the tremendous impact Social TV, the act of connecting with people via social networks while watching television, has on viewing. The hybrid, qualitative-quantitative study with males and females who engage in Social TV at least once a week uncovered that 58% of heavy engagers (more than 10 times a week) watch more live TV because they need to be part of the conversation in real-time. According to the study, Social TV has also made these viewers into more active consumers and influencers. To that end, a third of respondents said their primary reason for engaging in Social TV was either to give feedback to the television network or show support for their television program."

Source:  Press release from iModerate Research Technologies, 26th March 2012

Facebook refers nearly as much traffic to The Guardian as Google does

Click to enlarge

Source:  A chart used during a speech by Tanya Cordrey of The Guardian, reported by Journalism.co.uk, 21st March 2012
Note - see the full article for more stats & background

Angry Birds Space was downloaded 10m times in 3 days

10 million Angry Birds Space downloads in less than 3 days! Thanks to our fans, stay tuned for more! #angrybirdsspace
— Angry Birds (@AngryBirds) March 26, 2012

Source:  Tweet from Angry Birds, 26th March 2012

American Express' twitter campaign generated an estimated 160,000 tweets and $7.2m in spend on the cards

"A campaign launched by American Express in the first week of March on Twitter has generated some eye-brow raising numbers.  Called Tweet Your Way to Savings, the campaign asks AmEx cardholders to tweet #AmEx hashtag in order to receive a deal the cardholder is marketing. The savings are automatically applied with the purchase.
Visibli Social Analytics, which has been tracking the #AmEx hashtags since the campaign launched on March 6, reports that the campaign has generated so far a total spend of approximately $7.2 million and discounts of $1.4 million, roughly. There have been 160,707 tweets, or approximately 259 tweets per hour."

Source:  MarketingVox, 16th March 2012

Searches from iOS devices account for 60% of mobile searches in the US

"Barclays Capital’s Anthony DiClemente has an interesting theory about Siri and its effect on Google’s mobile search revenue. DiClemente points out that iOS grabs a whopping 60 percent of mobile traffic share according to Comscore’s December data. When you look at Google’s mobile search statistics, the bulk of the traffic is likely from customers using iOS devices to search using Google.
As Siri takes a bigger role in iOS, customers will increasingly use voice-assisted search instead of mobile search. Siri doesn’t use just Google for search; it can pull information from Bing, Wolfram Alpha and other mobile services. This shift from Google search to Siri search could have an impact on Google says DiClemente . Google estimates that mobile is about 20% of all paid search items and iOS is likely the biggest contributor. Any loss of customers to Siri could, in the long run, hurt Google claims DiClemente."

Source:  IntoMobile, 10th March 2012

Note - I'm assuming that this is a US-only stat - let me know if you know different!

The US accounts for 21% of global mobile data revenues

"The US market generated $67 billion in mobile data revenues in 2011 accounting for 39% of the overall revenues for the country. The mobile data market grew 4% Q/Q and 19% Y/Y to reach $18.6B for the quarter. For the year 2012, we are forecasting that mobile data revenues in the US market will reach $80 billion.
The US market accounts for 5% of the subscriber base but 17% of the global service revenues and 21% of the global mobile data revenues. It also accounts for 40% for the global smartphone sales.
[...]
Mobile data traffic growth continued unabated doubling again for the 8th straight year. We expect the mobile consumption to double again in 2012. Data now constitutes over 85% of the mobile traffic in the US."

Source:  Data from Chetan Sharma Consulting, reported on their site, March 2012

Smartphone penetration in Europe by market - January 2012

EU5 - 45.2%
UK - 52.6%
France - 41.4%
Germany - 38.2%
Italy - 44.4%
Spain - 52.5%
Source:  Data from comScore, reported in a press release, 22nd March 2012

Twitter has 140m active users

"Six years may not be very long in human terms, but it’s been quite an enormous span for the thing we know and love as Twitter. When @jack first sketched out his notion in March 2006, no one could have predicted the trajectory of this new communication tool. Now it seems that there are as many ways to express yourself in 140 characters as there are people doing it. And at last check, there are more than 140 million active users (there’s that number again) — and today we see 340 million Tweets a day. That’s more than 1 billion every 3 days. However concisely, it turns out there’s plenty to say."

Source:  Twitter blog, 21st March 2012

Mobile web users spend more time with the mobile web than TV

"Mobile ad network InMobi has just published its Mobile Media Consumption Q4 2011 Survey, which questioned over 20,000 mobile consumers in 18 markets across all continents.
It found that mobile has surpassed TV in terms of time spent, with mobile web users spending 27 per cent of their media time on mobile and 22 per cent of their media time on TV
It also revealed that three quarters planning to conduct m-commerce activities within the next year (76 per cent) while 42 per cent say that mobile advertising has introduced them to something new."

Source:  Mobile Entertainment, 28th February 2012

TV is the most effective medium for driving traffic to websites

"Television is still the most effective advertising channel in driving traffic to websites, according to a new survey by Deloitte.
The sixth annual ‘State of the Media Democracy’ report, based on responses from 2,276 UK consumers aged between 14 and 75 years old, found that 64% of respondents had visited a website after seeing an advert on TV.
61% said they visited a website after seeing a magazine ad, 59% said a newspaper ad drove them online, while only 12% of respondents said a mobile app advert had prompted them to visit a brand's site.
A further 62% of respondents said they paid more attention to newspaper adverts than their online equivalents.
Deloitte said that online display advertising had actually lost ground year-on-year, in 2010 only 49% of respondents said they paid more attention to print than online.
The power of TV advertising is to be expected, as the survey also found that 98% of people chose TV services as their favourite type of media."

Source:  Econsultancy, 19th March 2012

Mobile ad spend in the UK rose to £203m in 2011

"Advertising on mobile devices rocketed by 157%* in 2011, to a new high of £203.2 million, according to the annual IAB and PwC mobile advertising spend study.
With smartphone ownership standing at 53% of the UK population**, the proliferation of touchscreen technology, 3G, and soaring tablet sales have sparked a surge in interest from brands, especially in the Retail and Consumer Goods (FMCG) sectors.
The rapid take up of apps and social media, fuelled in part by cheaper data tariffs, has created a new generation of “dual” and “triple screeners” – 51% of Britons*** now watch TV while surfing the internet using tablets, phones or laptops.
In response, advertisers are creating ever more engaging and interactive rich media ads – turning to apps, video and new formats to engage and enhance the mobile experience.
Mainstream advertisers are now taking a larger share of spend with Technology, Retail and FMCG performing particularly well.
The top five display categories, by share of spend, in 2011 were:
Entertainment & the Media        23.2%                   (32.9% in 2010)
Telecoms                                   14.9%                  (14.3% in 2010)
Consumer Goods/FMCG            14.4%                   (11.8% in 2010)
Retail                                         12.3%                   (5.5% in 2010)
Finance                                     10.3%                   (18.6% in 2010)
Advertisers have recognised the rise of apps, with 54% of display advertising now on apps; while 46% of  display advertising spend is on browser inventory.
Display advertising on mobiles more than doubled year on year, increasing by 186% to £68.9 million (£28.1million in 2010) and a market share of 34% (34% in 2010). In 2008 display advertising on mobiles was worth £14.2 million, so the format has risen fivefold in three years.
As the medium matures, growth has been driven largely by standard display formats, such as banners and text links, which were up 196% to £59.4 million. However, the category including SMS and MMS advertising grew by 241% to £7.6 million (£2.5 million in 2010).
Mobile video advertising (pre / post-roll) increased rapidly to £0.8 million (£0.2 million in 2010) as brand advertisers invest in new rich media formats.
Mobile search was up 145% to £134.3 million (£54.9 million in 2010) and a market share of 66% (66% in 2010). In 2008, search was worth £14.4 million, so has grown by nearly tenfold in three years.
Although only launched in 2010, tablets are now an everyday device with more than 4.1 million Britons owning one**. As a consequence, the IAB has measured tablet-specific advertising for the first time and found that £2.4 million was spent in 2011.
Jon Mew, director of mobile and operations at the IAB, said: “This study proves just how engrained mobile has become within both brands’ and consumers’ day to day lives. With 26 million smartphone owners now in the UK – the opportunities for brands to interact with consumers in a more innovative and relevant way are endless. So it’s no surprise to see mobile advertising continuing to grow at such an overwhelming and encouraging rate.’’
Anna Bartz, strategy manager at PwC, said: “Mobile advertising is gaining momentum – with growing opportunities to target consumers with a range of innovative formats, on the web and in mobile applications. The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets means mobile is offering a compelling new way for brands and advertisers across all sectors to reach people, making it an increasingly powerful platform in multi-media strategies.”
Source:  Press release by the IAB, 20th March 2012

Apple sold 3 million iPad 3s in the first 3 days

"Apple® today announced it has sold three million of its incredible new iPad®, since its launch on Friday, March 16. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.**
[...]
The new iPad is already available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the US Virgin Islands and will be available in 24 more countries starting at 8:00 a.m. local time on Friday, March 23"

Source:  Press release from Apple, 19th March 2012

The demographics of American iPad owners

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from comScore, reported in comScore Datamine, 7th March 2012

'Non humans' account for over half of all web traffic

"By one study's measure, slightly more than half of all the Internet's traffic comes from computers not being used by fleshy humans that might actually purchase products.
That's according to study released today by Incapsula, an Internet security firm, begging the question: What exactly does Internet traffic from a "non-human" look like? Incapsula is here to explain: "hackers, spambots, scrapers and spies of sorts collecting proprietary business information and customer data from unsuspecting websites." "Hackers" (5 percent) refers to hacking software that visits site to swipe credit-card information or crash sites (think of the ubiquitous DDoS attacks). "Scrapers" (another 5 percent) refer to bots that copy content from other sites and post it on their own, to get search-engine traffic. Altogether, the robotic ne'er-do-wells cited above constitutes 31 percent of all web traffic. The other 20 percent is the search engines themselves, the Googles and Bings of the Interwebbed world, whose servers work 'round-the-clock to index the Internet for our browsing pleasure."

Source:  Atlantic Wire, 15th March 2012

Mobile app Draw Something has been downloaded more than 20m times in 5 weeks

"Three weeks ago, we wrote about OMGPOP's mobile app, Draw Something. The ten-day-old social game had been downloaded more than 1.2 million times.
Now the company has shared even more staggering numbers with us.  In just five weeks, the pictionary-like game has been downloaded 20 million times.
That's more users than 3-year-old Foursquare has. That's almost as many users as 1.5-year-old Instagram.
Draw Something is one of the fastest growing mobile apps of all time.
CEO Dan Porter tells us the game is generating 6-figures per day. His company has generated more revenue from the game in five weeks than the entire company generated last year. He hasn't spent a dime on marketing since the app's first week."

Source:  Business Insider, 12th March 2012

The New York Times has over 450,000 digital subscribers

"The New York Times wants to convert more of its casual web readers into paying subscribers. Starting in April, the company will reduce the number of free monthly stories offered to nonsubscribers to 10 from 20, a bet that clamping down on freebies will boost subscriptions and not decrease traffic, which would mean lower ad revenue.
The company also announced that a full year after erecting the paywall, it has 454,000 paying subscribers, making it one of the more successful mass publications to charge for web content. The Wall Street Journal, which started charging for its website in 1996, has 1.3 million subscribers."

Source:  AdAge, 20th March 2012

Newspaper print advertising revenue fell by 9.2% in the US in 2011

"The Newspaper Association of America has posted its final tally of newspaper advertising statistics for 2011, and as expected, it is not a pretty picture.
Total advertising revenue was down 7.3 percent, a percentage point worse than in 2010. Print advertising was off 9.2 percent year-to-year.
Digital advertising revenue, after a comparatively weak fourth quarter, grew 6.8 percent for the year.
So the industry posted total ad revenues of $23.9 billion, a decline of $1.9 billion from the previous year. NAA does not have current numbers on circulation revenue and is only starting to assemble data on revenue from such activities as contract printing, events, or social media assistance to businesses.
Figure that those add roughly $10 billion, making newspapers a $34 billion industry. Google alone, by contrast, recorded revenues of $37.9 billion for 2011.
In updating numbers released previously for the first three quarters, NAA identified two shifts occurring late in the year."

Source:  Poynter, 15th March 2012

86bn text messages were sent in China in January 2012

"China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has released its January 2012 telecom industry statistics. The figures for the month were as follows:
Telecom operating revenues were RMB 92.52 bln (USD 14.66 bln), up 15% YoY. Core services accounted for RMB 81.63 bln (USD 12.94 bln) of the total, up 12.2% YoY.
Total telephone subscribers saw a net increase of 9.94 mln in January to reach 1.281 bln. Mobile subscribers grew by 10.35 mln to 996.6 mln, and fixed-line subscribers dropped by 0.41 mln to 284.71 mln. Broken down by traditional fixed-line and PHS, the PHS subscriber base declined by 934,000 subs to 16.94 mln, while traditional (i.e. non-PHS) fixed-line subscribers increased by 525,000 to 267.77 mln. 8.18 mln new 3G subscribers were added in January to reach a total of 136.6 mln.
A total of 85.57 bln SMS messages were sent during the month of January, a 23.8% increase YoY."

Source:  Marbridge Daily, 13th March 2012

Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Twitter

Click to enlarge

Source:  Shareaholic, 7th March 2012

KONY 2012 is the fasted growing online video campaign to date

"For perspective on how big and fast the Kony campaign is, consider former champion Susan Boyle, who currently has over 480 million views. It took Boyle 6 days to reach 70 million views. Kony is tracking a day faster. Even the Old Spice Guy can't keep up. His legendary Responses campaign generated 35 million views in its first week, but it didn't top 70 million views until Christmas 2010, five months after it launched.
How big will Kony get? That's anyone's guess right now. But with 70 million views in five days, it's the fastest growing social video campaign to date. And with countless media reports in the past 24 hours and millions of views already this morning, it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Expect Kony to top 100 million views very soon."

Source:  Visible Measures blog, 9th March 2012
Update - 112m in 9 days

Instagram has been downloaded 27m times

"Photo-sharing app Instagram has nearly doubled its total number of registered users since December, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom announced Sunday at the South by Southwest conference.
Instagram, which launched two years ago, now boasts 27 million registered users, up from 15 million in December of last year, according to Systrom. Foursquare, by comparison, claims just under 20 million users, and was founded in March of 2009."

Source:  Huffington Post, 11th March 2012

58m people accessed Facebook only my mobile in December 2011

"The company has revealed that, during December 2011, more than 58 million Facebook users accessed the social network using their mobile phone only. That’s right, more than 50 million people entered through the service a mobile app or (most likely) their mobile browser, without logging in through a PC at all during the month.
Though the number represents a mere 13 percent of the reported 432 million users that were active on a mobile at any point during the month, and even less of its entire 850 million plus userbase, it is a quite incredible statistic. Importantly, it is also one that will continue to rise for two main reasons."
Source:  TheNextWeb, 8th March 2012

There are 1.3bn visits to Facebook in the UK

"1. There are over 1.3 billion visits to Facebook a month from the UK Internet population – making Facebook the second most visited website in the UK after Google.
2. 1 in every 6 page views in the UK is to a Facebook page. The social network accounted for 15% of all UK Internet page views in December 2011.
3. 500 million hours are spent on Facebook in the UK every month. The average session time for a user visiting Facebook is 22 minutes.
4. Facebook is the most popular social network in the UK, accounting for over 50% of all visits to social networks. Facebook is twice the size of YouTube and 17 times bigger than Twitter in terms of visits from UK Internet users.
5. Facebook receives an average of 40 million UK Internet visits every single day."
[continues]
Source:  Hitwise Intelligence, 2nd February 2012

The top 10 music downloads & radio plays in Europe in 2011

"Top ten downloads in Europe 2011:
1. Adele – Someone Like You
2. Adele – Rolling In The Deep
3. Alexandra Stan – Mr Saxobeat
4. Adele – Set Fire To The Rain
5. Example – Changed The Way You Kiss Me
6. DJ Antoine vs Timati feat Kalenna – Welcome To St Tropez
7. Duck Sauce – Barbra Streisand
8. Adele – Make You Feel My Love
9. Caro Emerald – A Night Like This
10. Tiesto vs Diplo – C’mon (Catch Em By Surprise)

Top ten radio airplay in Europe 2011:
1. Adele – Rolling In The Deep
2. Adele – Set Fire To The Rain
3. Alexandra Stan – Mr Saxobeat
4. Adele – Someone Like You
5. Caro Emerald – A Night Like This
6. Duck Sauce – Barbra Streisand
7. Example – Changed The Way You Kiss Me
8. Inna – Sun Is Up
9. DJ Antoine vs Timati feat Kalenna – Welcome To St Tropez
10. Alexandra Stan – Get Back"

Source:  Chart by IMPALA, reported by CMU, 8th March 2012

More than 100m Americans use smartphones

"comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending January 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.4 percent market share. Google Android continued to grow its share in the smartphone market, accounting for 48.6 percent of smartphone subscribers.
For the three-month average period ending in January, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 19.7 percent share and Motorola with 13.2 percent share. Apple continued to capture share in the OEM market with 12.8 percent of total mobile subscribers (up 2.0 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 6.6 percent.
The number of U.S. smartphone subscribers surpassed the 100-million mark in January, up 13 percent since October to 101.3 million subscribers. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 48.6 percent market share (up 2.3 percentage points) followed by Apple with 29.5 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points). RIM ranked third with 15.2 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.4 percent) and Symbian (1.5 percent)."

Source:  Press release from comScore, 6th March 2012

Apple sold 62m iOS devices - inc 15.4m iPads - in Q4 2011

"While we wait for the new iPad to officially take the stage in San Francisco, Apple CEO Tim Cook has just taken the opportunity to rattle off some impressive numbers for the company’s iOS devices. The company has sold a total of 315 million iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, with a full 62 million of those iOS-powered devices being sold in Q4 2011 alone.
It seems as though 2011 was a banner year for iOS hardware too — of the 315 million devices sold in total, 172 million of those post-PC units were sold in 2011. With the new iPad just waiting in the wings, it’ll be interesting to see how much more traction Apple will be able to eke out in the tablet space.
These three product lines alone accounted for 76% of Apple’s Q4 2011 revenue, and a quite a bit of Apple’s big Q4 performance can be pegged on the iPad’s popularity. According to Cook, 15.4 million iPads were sold during that quarter, which eclipses the sales performance of nearly every other major PC manufacturer during that same time period."

Source:  Techcrunch, 7th March 2012

78m Americans bought CDs in 2011

"According to an annual study of the consumer music market in the U.S. by The NPD Group, a leading market research company, growth in the music market can be traced to an increasing number of CD and digital download buyers, and an increase in the total amount that consumers are spending for music. After years of decline, driven by sharply falling CD sales and maturing digital download market, total music-track sales rose 4 percent during 2011. Although CD sales dipped, the decline was not nearly as severe as in the past, and the drop was offset by a healthy paid-music download market.
Based on the findings of NPD’s “Annual Music Study,” after years of losing buyers, caused by many consumers who simply stopped buying music, the total number of CD buyers increased for the second consecutive year, growing 2 percent to 78 million. There were a variety of reasons consumers cited for purchasing more CDs, including a perceived improvement in the quality and value of the music available, and a greater ability to learn about music prior to purchase. Consumers also now have a wider variety of sources to discover new music -- from traditional AM/FM radio and online services like Pandora, Rhapsody, and Spotify. Even as Apple’s iTunes approaches its tenth anniversary next year, there are still nearly twice as many CD buyers in the U.S. as there are paid digital-music downloaders."

Source:  Press release from NPD, 6th March 2012

Adele's mobile app has been downloaded 1.5m times

"Adele is closing in on 20m sales of her album 21, but the British singer has also been a big hit on Apple and Google's app stores.
The official Adele app has been downloaded more than 1.5m times on iPhone and Android, according to David Emery, head of marketing at Beggars Group, the parent company of Adele's label XL Recordings.
[...]
In terms of features, Adele's app is fairly standard – news, photos, videos, song previews and tour dates, as well as a social section for comments and photo postings.
Emery says the aim was less about selling more music and tickets, than to provide "another communication platform" for Adele's fans, sitting alongside her own website, Facebook and Twitter."

Source:  The Guardian, 7th March 2012

Cosmopolitan magazine has 100,000 paid digital subscriptions

"Cosmopolitan magazine has reached what appears to be a milestone: 100,000 paid digital subscriptions.
The Hearst Magazines title seems to have beaten other brands to the mark, reinforcing the idea that digital will be a big platform for Cosmopolitan. But it's also a good sign for magazines' digital ambitions in general.
"A couple of years ago, the big question was what's going to happen to magazines like Cosmo in the future," Kate White, the magazine's editor-in-chief, told Ad Age. "There was a little bit of anxiety. What this has done is say that our content will rule and will thrive. Women want our content, and they'll get it on a variety of platforms."
Cosmopolitan has been available on the Zinio platform since 2005 but has seen its digital circulation rise particularly since the advent of the iPad, Nook and Kindle Fire.
Cosmopolitan is also getting more money for digital subscriptions than it gets in print. Cosmo's website offers print-only subscriptions for $15 per year, or $12 a year for a three-year commitment. Its digital-only subscriptions for the iPad and Zinio, by comparison, command $19.99 per year. IPad subscriptions are also available monthly for $1.99 -- equivalent to $23.88 annually. Fire and Nook subscriptions are available monthly only, at $1.99 a month.
The magazine says it has 100,000 individually paid digital subscriptions from individual subscribers and is not counting sponsored digital subscriptions toward the milestone."

Source:  AdAge, 7th March 2012

39% of Chinese iPhone users have never bought an app

"39% of China's iPhone users have jailbroken their iPhone and 38% have never purchased a mobile application, according to Chinese mobile advertising optimization platform Guohead.com's recently released Mobile Ad White Paper. 62% of China's iPhone users have purchased at least one app. The iTunes app store saw a dramatic increase in sales in the week following the addition of RMB payment support in November 2011, implying that many existing users were unwilling to purchases apps in part due to a lack of payment support.
Android users are more reluctant to purchase apps, with only 23% reporting they have purchased an app before, while 77% never had."

Source:  Sina Tech, via Marbridge Daily, 29th February 2012

Lady Gaga has 20m followers on Twitter

She's the first user to reach 20m.

Retrieved 6th March 2012

35m NFC-enabled phones were shipped in 2011

"Thirty-five million Near Field Communications (NFC)-enabled phones were shipped in 2011, in what has been described as a "breakthrough year" for the mobile payments technology.
According to analyst firm IMS Research, that number could grow to nearly 80 million by the end of 2012, driven largely by the technology being built into a wider range of devices. However, the company highlighted that Apple has so far failed to tap into the mobile payments market."

Source:  PC Advisor, 16th December 2011

There are nearly 1 billion mobile subscribers in China

"According to the released data from three telco operators in China, there are 987.58 million mobile subscribers in China by end January 2012."

Source:  China Internet Watch, 1st March 2012

Sina Weibo's 300m users make over 100m posts a day

"According to Sina’s unaudited financial report, there are now over 300 million registered users on Sina Weibo now that generate over 100 million posts every day. 9% are daily active users. Sina will invest in Weibo 160 million in 2012.
According to Sina CEO, Charles Chao, Sina will promote microblogging payment system, credit system, and data mining system structures to further improve the commercialization of the microblogging infrastructure.
Sina Weibo will launch a new Enterprise Edition in order to attract more business users. Sina Weibo currently has over 130 thousand certified business accounts."

Source:  China Internet Watch, 29th February 2012

Nearly half of American adults own a smartphone

"Nearly half (46%) of American adults are smartphone owners as of February 2012, an increase of 11 percentage points over the 35% of Americans who owned a smartphone last May. Two in five adults (41%) own a cell phone that is not a smartphone, meaning that smartphone owners are now more prevalent within the overall population than owners of more basic mobile phones.
Nearly every major demographic group—men and women, younger and middle-aged adults, urban and rural residents, the wealthy and the less well-off—experienced a notable uptick in smartphone penetration over the last year. Overall adoption levels are at 60% or more within several cohorts, such as college graduates, 18-35 year olds and those with an annual household income of $75,000 or more."

Source:  Pew Internet & American Life Project, 1st March 2012

Full report here

Americans spent $2.3bn on virtual goods in 2011

"Paying for all those virtual tractors and fences on "FarmVille" adds up. Spending on virtual goods in the U.S. rose 28% to $2.3 billion in 2011, per Visa-owned e-commerce company PlaySpan and Frank N. Magid Associates.
Among consumers, seven in 10 can be classified as gamers. Half of U.S. gamers bought virtual items last year, and one-third of the 600 gamers surveyed overall for the study. The average spent was $64 in 2011. U.S. male gamers were almost twice as likely as their female counterparts to purchase these virtual goods."

Source:  MediaPost, 29th February 2012

Tablet ads have twice the engagement of mobile ads

"The latest research from mobile video ad network Rhythm NewMedia provides  further evidence that tablet ads are more inviting than those on mobile phones. In its fourth-quarter report, the company said full-page display ads on tablets had a 21% engagement rate compared to 9.4% for the same ad units on smartphones.
Almost a quarter (24%) of tablet owners and 11% of smartphone owners have clicked an ad they were viewing on their respective devices to learn more about a product or promotion, according to data released last week by Nielsen. Doubling the screen size may not always double the interaction rate, but it seems to help.
Among other findings, the Rhythm report showed that combining video with full-page ads increased engagement on mobile devices from 9.4% to 11.5%. When it comes to in-stream video ads, it also indicated that adding custom buttons for social networks like Facebook or Twitter or specific brands pushed up engagement rates from .97% to 1.21%
Fifteen-second ads continued to have better completion rates than 30-second ads, but only slightly -- 89.2% compared to 88.3%. The shorter format still accounts for the vast majority of video ads, although 30-second spots grew slightly in 2011 in connection with people increasingly watching full episodes on mobile devices."

Source:  MediaPost, 1st March 2012

More than a third of 18-35s in Europe watch their favourite sports teams online

"Across Europe, the Web has surpassed TV as the primary platform for 18-to-35 viewers to watch their favorite sport, according to new research conducted by Havas Sport & Entertainment for the Global Sports Forum Barcelona.
A full 36.1% of this prized demographic sign in online to watch their favorite sport or team play on a weekly basis, compared with just 32.1% who do so on television. This marks a significant shift from a year ago, when similar research conducted by Havas found the Europeans of prime age still preferred their sports on a TV.
Advertisers, content providers, broadcasters, rightsholders and athletes will all be affected, according to Lucien Boyer, President and CEO of Havas Sport & Entertainment and General Commissioner of the GSFB.
“The implications of this are huge and suggest the broadcast sales model for sport needs to be carefully considered in the future,” Boyer warned. “Whilst TV will clearly continue to remain of enormous importance, the younger generation choose to consume sport in a number of ways. The key now is to be a content provider that can satisfy the demands of sports fans across all platforms.”"
Source:  MediaPost, 1st March 2012

Netflix members watched 2 billion hours of streaming video in Q4 2011

"Netflix Inc. said today its members instantly watched more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix in the fourth quarter of 2011.
With more than 20 million streaming members globally, Netflix has revolutionized entertainment by allowing people to enjoy TV shows and movies when, where and how they want with a click of a remote, mouse or the touch of a screen.
"We were thrilled to deliver more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies across 45 countries in the fourth quarter," said Netflix Co-Founder and CEO Reed Hastings. "Netflix delights members by giving them choice, convenience and control over the entertainment they love for an incredibly low price.""

Source:  Press release from Netflix, 4th January 2012

25bn apps have been downloaded from the Apple App Store

"Apple® today announced that more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store™ by the users of the more than 315 million iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® devices worldwide. The 25 billionth app downloaded, Where's My Water? Free, was downloaded by Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China. As the winner of the App Store Countdown to 25 Billion Apps, Chunli Fu will receive a $10,000 iTunes® Gift Card.
[...]
The revolutionary App Store offers more than 550,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 123 countries around the world, with more than 170,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from an incredible range of apps in 21 categories, including Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel. The App Store has paid out more than four billion dollars to developers."

Source:  Press release from Apple, 5th March 2012

Earlier - 10bn announced on 22nd January 2011

5bn announced on 7th June 2010

1bn announced on 24th April 2009

Nearly 2/3 of smartphones in China use Android

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from mobile ad platform Madhouse, reported by Penn-Olsen, 20th February 2012
Note - see the full article for lots more data

82% of Chinese mobile internet users are under 30

"During 2011, the average age of Chinese mobile Internet users dropped again.  82% of all mobile Internet users are 30 years old or younger with 58% falling between 18 and 30 years old.
The 18-30 demographic is important because these are the adults with disposable income.  Also, the disparity between male and female mobile Internet users evened out more.  It is expected that females will out number males within 3 years."

Source:  Data from Chinese mobile search engine Easou, reported by MobiSights, 8th February 2012

Note - follow the link for more data

There are 338m mobile internet users in China

"The follow are some of the numbers coming out of iResearch.  The Chinese mobile Internet market during 2011 reached 39.31 billion RMB.  This created a year to year growth rate of 97.5%.  This growth was supported mainly by the mobile value-added market and the rapidly growing mobile E-Commerce.  We expect mobile E-commerce to fully surpass mobile value-added sometime during 2012.  Mobile advertising, which saw a 101.7% growth in 2011 to 2.42 billion RMB, is another segment that will continue its track record during 2012 as adverstising on mobile is finally being wholeheartedly supported by advertisers..
With 338 million mobile Internet users in China during 2011, we should see the mobile Internet market continue its rocket ship climb this year as well – as long as Europe gets its act together.  If they don’t, we’ll still see very solid growth."

Source:  MobiSights, 7th February 2012

Foursquare's 15m users have checked in 1.5bn times

"Crowley said the 15 million global Foursquare users have checked in 1.5 billion times. With such a critical mass of data, the company is developing the ability to become the Amazon of locations: Serving up recommendations for places you would probably like to visit based on your profile and check-in history."

Source:  CNN Money, 29th February 2012

There are fewer than 1m Google TVs in use - estimate

"Google and its partners have never said how many Google TV devices were bought by consumers since the platform’s debut, but the company said in the past that device activations have doubled since the  Google TV 2.0 software update late last year. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on any numbers for this story. However, there are some very useful clues hidden within Google’s Android Market statistics: Google publishes ballpark numbers about each and every app’s active install base — the number of devices an app is installed on right now — as part of its Market app pages.
Google TV comes with a number of pre-installed apps, which are also listed on the Android Market. One example of this is the TV and Movies app, which is basically Google TV’s programming guide — an essential part of the Google TV experience that most users wouldn’t dare to delete from their machines. The active install base for this app, according to Google’s Android Market, currently is 500,000 to 1 million. The same is true for all the other apps that come pre-installed with Google TV, which suggests that the number of Google TV devices that are currently being used by consumers is less than 1 million.
This data is supported by findings from Xyologic, which recently estimated that the install base for various preinstalled apps ranges from around 600,000 to 900,000 devices. I asked Xyologic co-founder Matthäus Krzykowski how the company gathers its data, and he told me that it estimates the install base of apps based on a number of data points, and usually only sees error margins of a few percentage points."

Source:  GigaOm, 28th February 2012

A typical Facebook post only reaches 16% of friends

"Amongst all the business-related news at FMC, Facebook revealed that the average news feed story from a user profile reaches just 16 percent of their friends. Your actively shared links, photos, and status updates probably reach much higher than 16 percent of your friends, while more inane auto-generated posts about new friendships, wall posts, and articles you read may only be seen by your closest buddies.
[...]
After his Q&A session about ads during the Facebook Marketing Conference, I followed up with Boland, asking if the 16 percent average distribution rate hampered communication. He defended Facebook’s news feed, saying “No, there are pieces of content you create that are interesting, and there’s some that are not.” And the 16 percent doesn’t just apply to users. Business Pages have the same average reach, which is why Facebook is launching its new “Reach Generator” to help marketers buy extra distribution of their Page posts on the ads sidebar, in the web and mobile news feed, and even on the logout page.
The stat from Director of Product Marketing Brian Boland was backed up by VP Chris Cox who said this holds true “in aggregate across all profiles, all types of content, all interactions, all ages, and all demographics.” By reducing the reach of low relevance posts, Facebook leaves news feed space for compelling wedding photos, new job announcements, funny videos, and urgent questions. Still, it means the ambient intimacy of the news feed can’t completely replace the reliability for direct communication."

Source:  TechCrunch, 1st March 2012