Search Engine Watch: Top 10 Predictions for the Global Mobile Internet Market in 2012

Search Engine Watch did not list the top ten in the past, but instead made ten predictions about the future development of the mobile market. Let's take a look at how the mobile industry will develop in 2012.

1. The mobile market is getting bigger and bigger

In 2012, the US mobile advertising revenue is expected to grow 50% year-on-year to $1.6 billion. Location-based advertising will become mainstream. At the same time, mobile location search (currently accounting for 40% of Google mobile searches), the emergence of large and small advertisers, and the premium advertising rates driven by location-based advertising will greatly promote the development of this market.

2. Monetization of the mobile location market

As the number of users of mobile location services grows, some of the largest companies in the field will begin to implement plans to make money. In particular, Foursquare and Yelp, which provide mobile transaction management and personal profile page services for users, will start charging existing free users (they are still in the user acquisition stage). Facebook has reached 500 million mobile users and has begun to raise funds on the market. Due to pressure from public investors, Facebook will be forced to launch a mobile business charging strategy, which may include sponsored content instead of banner ads at the end of 2012.

3. Let’s do business on the move

The textbooks on transaction economics may need some changes as people start using mobile transactions. Merchants will use better targeting and personalized services instead of slashing or bleeding discounts.

For merchants, this method has a larger profit margin and will be more attractive to small and medium-sized enterprises. This change can also promote the overall growth of the trading market, but when the market matures, the profit margin will become relatively small.

4. Mobile Payment

Among the many competing mobile payment standards, the one that will stand out in 2012 will be similar to the model that Foursquare and AMEX have cooperated on, that is, transactions are tied to credit card accounts. Only credit card transactions with good credit can be redeemed and tracked, which will reduce the loss of users' redemption transactions to merchants.

PayPal will also emerge as a leader in mobile payments, leveraging its online volume and eBay's continued supply of assets to gain competitive strength. Near field communication technology will not take off in 2012.

5. The future of “checking in” is not the current “checking in”

Location-based check-in will become mainstream in 2012, of course, only if there are devices that support it. In order to retain early adopters and expand the mainstream user market, check-in will become smarter and automatically select check-in mode based on pre-set settings. This is what Foursquare Radar and Shopkick are already doing. This will become a mainstream feature of all social networking sites that have check-in functions.

6. Mobile social sharing becomes a dark horse

Of course, in 2012, the "check-in" status can also be shared on social networking sites, which is also a popular mobile feature. But in addition to location and status updates, people can also add more diverse multimedia materials, such as pictures and songs. Applications with related functions such as Instagram and Soundtracking will have 30 million users.

7. Voice Search

Apple's Siri voice search engine will benefit Google and related companies because this new way of searching will increase the number of visits to mobile searches. The real value of Siri to Apple is that Apple will expand its cooperation with more partners or integrate it into the iOS SDK. Apple's competitors will be influenced by it and integrate voice search functions into Android phones, cars, TVs and video game consoles.

8. Apps vs. mobile websites

The growth rate of mobile websites will accelerate in 2012 and surpass that of applications. At the same time, HTML5, the standard for better mobile websites, will continue to expand its influence, and for economic reasons, the development of mobile websites will surpass applications in terms of price and scale. In addition, the growth and development of mobile websites will increase search mobile advertising revenue.

9. Apple Maps

As competition between Apple and Google intensifies, Apple has acquired 3D map company C3 Technologies and will create its own map navigation standard for iOS in the future. It is reported that Apple Maps will include the latest map features including 3D aerial imaging. It will also be integrated into iAd as map ads.

10. The tablet market is fragmented

The tablet market in 2012 will be divided into high-end products such as iPad and low-end products such as Amazon Kindle Fire and Nook Color. Amazon mainly makes profits from content services, so the strategy of selling Kindle Fire at a loss will have a considerable impact on the tablet hardware market. Android-based tablets are really neither high-end nor low-end, and can neither compete with low-end products in price nor with high-end products in quality. For Android tablets, 2012 will make them go the way of netbooks.