Asia has always been one of the more interesting mobile markets in the world. On one hand there are global front runners like Japan and Korea which are far ahead of the pack in terms of mobile technologies, and on the other hand are countries like India, China and Indonesia which are still growing in terms of mobile technologies but make up three of the largest mobile user populations in the world. It is only natural that mobile advertising is seen as a high potential medium in these emerging economies.
The rise in 3G subscriptions in these regions is fueling the growth in mobile data revenue. In many of these growing Asian markets, the fixed line internet varies from being poor and unreliable to completely non-existent. This causes people to turn towards the mobile web for connectivity, and in many cases, provides the first and sometimes only Internet experience to the majority of the population. In Indonesia, mobile users far outnumber Internet PC users by a ratio of 5:1. India has a mobile Internet subscriber base of more than 88 Million (2008) making it the largest consumer of mobile Internet across Asia. In fact, mKhoj’s network saw India traffic grow by over 350% in the last 6 months alone (at time of writing). Also aiding the explosion are the lower data fees which become more affordable in a highly competitive mobile operator market.
There are some key differences when it comes to advertising in these emerging markets when compared to North America and Western Europe. The user base tends to be young and have a higher tendency to access Internet via their mobile phones.
35.2% of mobile Internet users in China are between the ages of 18 and 24, and 17% are under 18 years of age. Together, this forms over half of the country’s mobile Internet population. mKhoj network shows that user preferences for this age group leans more towards communities & portals as well as content downloads instead of using email. They also prefer using the high end Nokia devices over RIM Blackberries. These user preferences give some insight into how these data elements can be woven into a successful campaign. Users in these markets are also more receptive to advertising on their phone, compared to feelings of suspicion in more developed markets (North America and Western Europe). The cultural contexts in most of these places are varied creating an opportunity for advertising which are extremely relevant to the mobile subscriber.
The challenges of these markets are also different when compared to the West. Low bandwidth is a consideration to be dealt with before creating rich ads that are large in size and consume lots of bandwidth. Internet exposure to mobile subscribers is lower in Asian regions, thus simple and intuitive ads can also be part of the ad campaign mix. Recently, at the Mobile Marketing Forum, held in Singapore, Abhay Singhal, Head of Global Ad Sales for mKhoj, highlighted the following hurdles facing mobile advertising today:
- Lack of credible data for the number of WAP users
- Lack of credible data for the number of active WAP users
- Tracking the type of content browsed on a mobile device
- Lack of demographics of mobile subscribers
Abhay said, “An insight into the nuances of the [Asian] markets shows that though the market is challenging, it is ripe with opportunity.”
Enough cannot be said about the potential of the growing economies across Asia. It is critical that all participants in the mobile advertising ecosystem contribute to influence the direction and growth of these markets. The emerging markets in Asia are on the brink of a gold rush in mobile advertising and this is the time to take the plunge and get a bite of the meat.
Related Posts:
View Comments to “mKhoj OpEd: Mobile Advertising in Asia – Uncovering the Gold Rush”
[...] See the original post: mKhoj OpEd: Mobile Advertising in Asia – U… [...]
[...] Jaokar also provides a thorough event summary from the LTE World Summit in Berlin, while Eric at Mobileslate outlines some of the challenges mobile advertisers in Asia are likely to face in entering that [...]