Mobile purchasing this holiday Christmas season is expected to take a larger share of online spending than ever before – and by a long shot. 

• Mobile purchasing will comprise 20% of online holiday sale in 2012, up from 11% in 2011 and 5.5% in 2010.
• 70% of smartphone users take action within 1 hour after conducting a search.
• 45% of customers plan to shop online this holiday season, up from 35% in 2010.

I'd found these shots a while back and had been meaning to share them just for the sake of knowing what NOT to do with your QR codes.

If you find yourselves looking at a QR code in one of these places, and it's part of your mobile marketing campaign, then something's obviously gone wrong somewhere along the line.

Today’s leading smartphone app markets, the USA and the top 5 Western EU countries, will lose their dominant positions. The prerequisites of the Indian market to become one of the leading app markets are improving rapidly.

These findings are part of the new Smartphone App Market Monitor by research2guidance. 

There are various factors that have an impact on the size of the app business in a country. The four main drivers for this development are:

Dynamic of the overall economic wealth: Over the past two decades India has had an annual average GDP growth rate of 5.8%, making the country one of the top emerging economies today. Furthermore, India’s GDP purchasing power parity (PPP) is ranked 3rd in the world by the most important institutions (e.g. the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the CIA World Factbook). The overall economic growth will drive the demand for apps that address customers with the help of the mobile channels.

Increase of average income: Today the monthly average salary in India amounts to only US$ 295, accounting for only 10% of the monthly average salary in both the US and Germany, and roughly 50% of the average Chinese monthly salary. Additionally, according to the Human Development Index (HDI), 41.6% of the Indian population lives below US$ 1.25 PPP per day. Projected growth rates of income are well above Western countries in the next few years. More and more employees will be able to afford a smartphone and thus drive India’s current smartphone share to 9%, overtaking Western countries’ figures.

High expected number of smartphone shipments:  India is currently ranked 7th in the world in terms of smartphone shipments, with a global market share of 2.9%. However, by 2016, the Indian market will become the third largest market for smartphone shipments (surpassing Brazil and the UK in the ranking) and will have an accompanying market share of 9.3%. This means that almost every tenth smartphone in the world will be shipped to the Indian market.

Active app developer community: India has one of the largest app developer communities that concentrate on offshore development today. With the growth of the domestic app market (user base and download number), more and more individuals will concentrate on developing apps for the Indian market creating more apps and download opportunities.

Those drivers will help to make India one of the leading app markets worldwide in only three years, providing business opportunities not only for domestic players.

Find more information on the Indian app market in the Smartphone App Market Monitor, Vol.7

Is Your Site Ready for the Holiday Season?

A couple of years ago, in August 2010, O2 launched the O2 Eco Rating which aimed to establish a rating system to make it easy for consumers to identify mobile phones that had green ideals in mind at the manufacture stage.

Here are the top 5 handsets according to this rating: