January 2011 Forrester Research has issued its annual report on mobile phone usage. Here is a recap of the key trends it’s predicting for 2011:
- Lower prices on smartphones will drive mainstream adoption. This means even more consumption of mobile media – like movie trailers.
- Smartphone adoption will drive new activities, including product research, including buying movie tickets, and making hotel and restaurant reservations.
- Mobile marketing will top $1 billion. The adoption of the new purchasing activities on mobile will also drive marketing expenditures – in a medium that generates real leads and sells products.
- Casual gaming will lead the content charge. Last year’s number one app at Apple was the game ‘Angry Birds’. Forrester predicts that the game market will continue to boom in 2011 and that it will expand to include news and music.
- 4G will have little impact in 2011. Forrester characterizes 4G as still mostly hype at this stage and notes that 3G adoption took almost seven years.
IVA predicts that trailer plays on mobile will continue to explode as more and more consumers exploit the convenience of watching a movie preview in the car, and following it up with show times and ticket purchases before the show, and tweets and posts on social media about the movie after the show.