Chinese handset vendor ZTE plans to invest 100mn RMB (that’s about 5.5mn GBP if my maths is right…) in promoting it’s handset brand in 2008, according to reports. ZTE is also targeting sales of 50mn handset in 2008 – currently the U980 model accounts for one third of all TD-SCDMA handsets sold by China Mobile (NYSE: CHL).

You might of heard of ZTE previously as a provider of handsets to 3, predominantly (if memory serves), in the prepay arena with F866 (below). However, given the rate at which hi-spec handsets are coming out of China currently, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see some devices on a par with the leading European vendors’ devices, in the near future…

[Via: Pacific Epoch]

Update time for y’all – remember I spoke about the very very cool Moto Z10 competition that’s happening? If not, read here. Well, I’ve just been informed that the YouTube channel, to submit videos to, is up and running – you can find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/motoroladirectorme

If you are stil none the wiser, check out my previous post here, and get yo’ act together to win a Z10 and £10K!

StarHub recently announced that it has now officially launched Singapore’s first nation-wide LBS (location-based service) for mobile advertising. For advertisers, the fit is obvious – send marketing/promo messages (SMS) to subscribers when they are in contextually relevant location. For customers, they get appropriate messages to what they are doing, both on a where and when basis.

For the launch, WTS Travel & Tours, (a big player in travel industry there) will be using the service to inform customers of promos and deals. Other advertisers and merchants will be going live shortly, apparently.

Comment: given the defined (and restricted) geographical area an Island occupies, this is a great place to try out Mobile services – there’s a reason why O2 (NYSE: TEF) deployed 3G first on the Isle of Man for example! Everyone has got to be happy with targeted Ads, but having them contextualised for location is a neat spin on things – I can’t wait for the first set of stats showing the service uptake and conversion in to buyers from those clicking through – bring me the stats!

[Via: hardwarezone.com]

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) have gone live with an awesome competition for those of that are a bit creative with old digital video – how do you fancy winning (a) one Motorola Z10, and (b) £10,000? Yes? Then read on!

The competition
The competition is extremely easy to enter. Entrants should pick a ‘logline’ (‘logline’ being film industry speak for a one-sentence summary of a film’s plot. For example, Alien’s original logline was “Jaws in space”) and use it to form the basis for a short film of no more than 90 seconds in length. As long as they relate to the logline, films can feature any subject matter the creator chooses (subject to the rules below): funny, emotive, thought-provoking or slapstick, all are welcome. And entries won’t be judged on production value – they can be as rough and ready as the creator likes.

Step one – Entries must be posted to a YouTube group by May 30th from where they will be placed on a Motorola-branded YouTube channel. Entries in the first stage will be judged by the panel with representatives from Empire, O2 (NYSE: TEF), Motorola and advertising agency Ogilvy. However, it is also an opportunity to showcase your work in front of friends and family. The makers of the top twenty films will win a MOTO Z10 phone and be named as Finalists with their videos reviewed on Empire.com.

Step two – The twenty Finalists will be invited to produce a second short film, using only their newly prized MOTO Z10. They will be given a week to create the second film which they are required to post online to a YouTube group by the deadline of 13th June. These entries will be featured on Empire Magazine’s website and will be reviewed by the same panel of judges. The film judged best by the panel of judges will be declared winner and the maker will win the main prize of £10,000. The content from successful entries may also feature in a ‘DIY movie making’ video to be produced and released by Motorola at a later date to further promote the handset.

The Prize
The 20 winners of Stage One will receive the MOTO Z10 handset with which they are required to film an additional film with a ‘logline’ of their own creation. The overall winner will receive a cash prize of £10,000. The winner will not only get the plaudits and kudos associated with winning but also the opportunity to have their work scrutinized and critiqued by an esteemed panel of judges.

Comment: this is truly cool – an excellent competition with GREAT prizes, from a Mobile Vendor that we all want to see do well. The Z10 is really great with media playback (and recording, so if you want one, and a chance to win the £10K, check out the URL below

http://www.hellomoto.co.uk

An interesting article popped up on MobiAD News the other day, which talks about what Media Planners are looking to get from Mobile. Rather than relay the article wholesale, I though I’d pick out some salient points:

• “Potential” – One very big potential for mobile is that it should become a media channel of choice for FMCG brands

• Buying Media – A major problem is that the mobile media market is very fragmented, making it a time consuming and inefficient task to contact all the individual media owners. We need transparency!

• Measurement – One of the biggest issues around measurement is that the data – if it is available at all – it is not provided in a way that is easy to use. It makes it very inefficient from a time and cost point of view to operate in mobile

• CTR (Click-through rate) reliance – If we only measure CTR, then it will create problems later on when we clients start to want to run brand campaigns – …. the role for mobile will be far more about engagement and awareness

• Economics of a Media Agency – there was a strong consensus that today mobile is not profitable for media agencies. Both because of the inefficiencies mentioned above, and also because of the large amount of consulting expertise that has to be provided to clients.

Comment: This is really interesting feedback from “the other side of the fence” – it basically points the finger at the mobile industry for not being easy to work with, not providing great data, and using poor measurement tools. In contrast to the bullish statements made by “Mobile Advertising” companies, it’s nice to how the “customer” (and by that I mean those on the media side) feel about Mobile.
Ultimately it’s very positive because these are great learnings for Mobile Ad providers – and the potential and uniqueness of Mobile means it can suceed for sure – it’s just needs some further work to bring it on a par with the other, more mature, advertising mediums.

[Via: MobiAD News]

M:Metrics has just revealed research on the demographics and size of the audiences for mobile media. The measurement firm reports that young males are a rich target for mobile advertisers, as among mobile phone users 36 percent of 18 to 34-year-old men accessed mobile media in February. Men in this age group are also highly receptive to SMS advertising, with 9 percent responding to an SMS advert they received, versus a 4 percent market average.

In Western Europe, the male population is more inclined to browse and download content on the mobile Web. A quarter of all male mobile phone users accessed mobile media, compared to just under 19 percent of women. This audience is also quite young: 28 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds consume mobile media, only 12 percent of those 55 and older do.

“Reaching the 18 to 34-year-old age demographic is a real challenge to advertisers, as this group is spending less time consuming print and broadcast media,” observed Paul Goode, senior analyst. “According to TGI M:Metrics data, in Great Britain, young consumers are redirecting that attention to mobile, as 18 to 34 year olds comprise 56 percent of mobile media users, compared to only 29 percent of TV viewers.”

Interestingly, U.S. mobile users are more active consumers of mobile media, as unlike Europeans they use SMS less frequently for news and information retrieval and are more likely to have data plans, which directly impacts mobile content consumption. Among Europeans, the UK has the highest percentage of mobile media users, at 26.8 percent, while Germany and France lag, at 18.4 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively.

“In the UK, mobile media is attracting a highly desirable audience that is 44 percent more likely to be defined as ‘cash rich, time poor’ than the market average. In fact, data from TGI M:Metrics confirms that one third of all UK mobile media users agree they are tempted to buy products they’ve seen advertised.”

“Since the early days of mobile advertising, SMS advertising has been an effective way to reach the masses, but advertises are now actively looking at the mobile web to access new audiences,” said Goode. “According to TGI M:Metrics, adding mobile to a media plan increases the efficiency of reaching key target groups, a metric that will continue to improve with the growth of 3G and smartphone ownership.”

UK: Tesco, the (primarily) food-retailing superstore, which also happens to run an MVNP, has been trialling a WAP advertising portal since May 2007 – Tesco says access to the portal has been growing, resulting in 300,000 unique visitors in December 07.

The Ads were delivered as “traditional” banner Ads with a click-through, and included brands such as ITV, Nivea and Teletext.

Interestingly, Tesco said it’s demographics include a large segment of female household “budget owners”, with an average age of 36 – this apparently means that for advertisers with products that are “fast-moving consumer goods such as toiletries and cleaning products”, it is a good target audience.

The survey that Tesco commissioned apparently showed that “more than half (60 per cent) of portal users are female and the same percentage said they visit the portal at least once a month, while 69 per cent claimed they would click on a relevant advert.”

These stats seem to fly in the face of typical Mobile Internet access – either Tesco know something we don’t, or they have the most M-Internet-savvy user-base I’ve seen in some time!

[Via: Silicon.com]

In a move that makes me choke on my morning Müsli, Handango has decided to sell software for mobile phones in actual stores, like the kind you have to leave your house and stand in line to buy things kind of store. Carphone Warehouse will be working directly with Handango to sell applications for the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) 8120 at first and then move on to other platforms later.

Can you imagine how the meeting must have went?

“Hey Bob, we need more money, think we should sell software at the point of purchase of the actual device?”

“You mean sell software when someone buys a phone?”

“Yea why not, we already push so many upgrades and confusing rate plans, might as well try and sell them a 20 quid calander application they’ll never use! We’ll put it in a pretty box, it will sell, it’s a sure fire bet!”

“Brilliant!”

Just like the floppy disk above is useless today, people in the industry and moving towards moving their bits digitally. Music, movies, books, software, everything. Leave it to Handango to start the devolution process.

[Via: Mobile Burn]

I.C.G., a leader in wireless digital signage solutions, have announced the industry’s first end-to-end wireless digital signage solution. Sidelining the high cost of hard wires and cumbersome implementation of traditional digital signage, I.C.G. combines their innovative wireless MobileMedia SystemTM and ViFi AdapterTM (video over WiFi) to bring a new standard to the industry.

According to industry research, by the year 2009 there will be over one million digital signs in North America (who’d have thought, eh?). Wired connections are needed for the various parts of the signage solution, such as network connectivity, media player and memory storage device, to function correctly. With the North American market on goal to install about 135 million locations over the next 10 years, I.C.G.’s wireless solution redefines the industry standard by eliminating the costs associated with hard-lines.

I.C.G.’s self-contained turnkey MobileMedia System eliminates the need for two, three or more unique and disparate components by bundling a 3G/4G wireless network module, a WiFi router, an integrated media player and hard drive. The MobileMedia System also enables cached content to be streamed over wireless links. The second element in the solution is the ViFi Adapter which receives the audio and video content over WiFi from the MobileMedia System and connects via a variety of video outputs to virtually any type of display. Supporting all media and content formats, as well as any Windows or Linux-based content management software, I.C.G.’s solution allows digital information to be multicast to numerous displays simultaneously.

Sounds impressive doesn’t it? One of those M2M applications that you don’t so often hear about, but kind of an obvious one when you think about it. If you want to read more, you can click here.

Buongiorno have just published research that tries to understand the “mobile browsing behaviour” of 18-34 yr olds in the UK. Fortunately it shows a positive trend in terms of amount of access (phew, I almost thought mobile browsing was going to be a failure for a second there! ), and divides users in to two groups – Embracers and Pragmatists.

Apparently the Embracers are those that can’t stop playing with their Mobys (I think another word is addicts?!) – they browse not just for a purpose, but because they can – be it entertainment, filling in time, or on Mobile versions of certain social networking sites (I suspect one of those starts with Face and ends with book…..). This group connects to the moby-interweb up to 3x/day!

The Pragmatists, as I eluded to above, use their Mobys as a tool – they browse for a reason, and that is usually to be productive, or get information. This group accesses less frequently at 2-3x/week, and only for relatively basic tasks.

Well it’s quite an interesting take on things, isn’t it – Buongiorno are a BIG contnet aggregator, so clearly they have some experience in this stuff (and on a personal note, they are also great to work with ). If Moby-browsing users really are just two types, then it’s quite a polar divide between them…..

So, IntoMobile readership, which camp do you fall in? Or are you not camp at all?!

[Via: Mobile Marketing Magazine]