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Archives for April 2011

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“If Google Places wasn’t around, TripAdvisor would've grown even faster”

Dara Khosrowshahi, Expedia’s CEO and President has acknowledged that TripAdvisor has “definitely (been) impacted by the changes that Google made in Places”.

“Places, they’re favouring their own internal content and pushing down kind of the SEO results down the page, often below the fold. And we certainly saw an effect on TripAdvisor traffic at the result of that,” Khosrowshahi said. He shared the same during the company’s Q1 2011 results earnings call (transcript on Seeking Alpha).

Still, TripAdvisor sustained its growth during the quarter. It experienced robust growth in its three main revenue categories during the first quarter of 2011, including over 25 percent growth in the cost per clicks, CPC-based revenue, on 30 percent growth in click volume, over 10 percent increase in display advertising revenue, and over 300 percent growth in other revenue, which includes its new Business Listings product. Overall, for Expedia, as a percentage of total worldwide revenue in the first quarter of 2011, hotel accounted for 59 percent, advertising and media accounted for 15 percent, air accounted for 13 percent and all other revenue accounted for the remaining 13 percent.

“I think the reason why you’re seeing the revenue strength of TripAdvisor is just because of TripAdvisor’s incredible diversity and the underlying strength of the business. So I think if Places wasn’t around, TripAdvisor would've grown even faster, but we're seeing very, very good results in TripAdvisor coming out of the international markets. The international markets now are a significant majority of TripAdvisor's traffic. There’s still less than -- well less than 50 percent of TripAdvisor’s revenue, and TripAdvisor’s doing great things internationally, launching new sites, investing pretty aggressively in the Asia Pacific regions, and then launching new products that we're quite happy about, such as the Business Listings product. So it hurt us, but I just think that the TripAdvisor management team has adjusted it well, and the business is on a good path, so that we are able to show healthy growth despite Google’s actions,” Khosrowshahi said.

Earlier this month, Expedia chose to spin-off TripAdvisor into a separately publicly traded company. The development emerged as online travel company Expedia’s Board of Directors preliminarily approved a plan to separate Expedia, Inc. into two publicly traded companies.

Synergies between Expedia and TripAdvisor

“One synergy that we loved about having TripAdvisor in the family was that we were hedged against media inflation. As you know, marketing is a very significant cost for Expedia, and having TripAdvisor in the family really provided a wonderful hedge against that,” Khosrowshahi said.

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Why investment in Expedia technology platform will pay off?

Online travel company Expedia, Inc. is currently in the process of moving its Expedia brand on to its new technology platform.

“Once completed, it will allow us to innovate at a much faster pace, delivering new products and features to our customers,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, Expedia’s CEO and President.

Providing an update during the company’s Q1 2011 results earnings call  (transcript on Seeking Alpha), Khosrowshahi said, “We’ve got key portions of Expedia brand, hotel path on to the new platform, and we’ve already started innovating on these pages, new info sites, new hotel search results, filters, urgency messaging, a new checkout path and more, will all serve to improve the experience for our customers and in turn, improve our conversion.”

“The migration of the hotel path should be complete around the end of June, and the air path, by the end of the year. Work on the packages path and other products will continue into 2012,” he added.

“What gives me confidence that the investment in Expedia technology platform will pay off?” continued Khosrowshahi. He pointed to the case of Hotels.com.

“We executed on a similar project in 2009 which we call 1H internally, it was painful operationally and financially near-term.. But the Hotels.com team just delivered on the quarter with nearly 40 percent gross bookings growth, more than tripling last year’s growth rates and has continued to show strong growth in April. While our aggressive investment, spend and technology marketing will continue to put pressure on our margins, we see improving results in Q2 and the balance of the year, both top line and bottom line.”

The online travel agency posted a first-quarter profit of $52 million, down 12 percent from $59.4 million a year ago. Revenue rose 15 percent to $822.2 million.

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Wyndham CEO: “A critical component of our strategy is developing the Wyndham brand”

Wyndham Worldwide has emphasised that a critical component of its strategy “is developing the Wyndham brand” at this juncture.

Through organic growth, acquisition and brand strategy, the company says it has grown to over 60,000 rooms carrying the Wyndham flag.

“When you add in the timeshare units flying the Wyndham flag, the total increases to over 80,000 rooms,” said  Stephen Holmes, chairman and CEO of the company. He shared the same during the company’s Q1 2011 results earnings call  (transcript on Seeking Alpha)..

As of March 31, 2011, the Company’s hotel system consisted of approximately 7,190 properties and 609,600 rooms. The development pipeline included approximately 830 hotels and over 102,000 rooms, of which 57 percent were new construction and 57 percent were international.

“We have underway a series of technology and business enhancements aimed at improving the value proposition to our hotel owners. We call these initiatives “Apollo”. In our most recent project, we began an effort with our franchisees to improve the content and navigation of our websites. We look forward to launching a beta test next month on one of our brands, and will continue with additional releases throughout the year,” said Holmes. 

In the lodging business, revenues were $149 million in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of three percent, compared with the first quarter of 2010

Rentals market

A recent development was the filing by HomeAway, Inc.. for the $230 million initial public offering. HomeAway is an online vacation rental company with 2010 revenues of $168 million.

The vacation rentals market is a large and highly fragmented market with significant growth opportunities globally.

Holmes explained that there two operating models in this market today. First is the rent by owner or listings model. In this model, the vacation homeowner lists his or her property on a website for a listing fee. The listings company refers the potential renter back to the homeowner to inquire about availability, make the reservation and process payment.

The second model is the professionally managed model.. This is primarily how the company’s European rentals and ResortQuest businesses operate.

“Of course, we also list properties on the Internet and over 60 percent of our bookings are transacted online. We provide real-time, bookable inventory that we hand-select and annually inspect. Homeowners provide homes to us primarily on an exclusive and commissionable basis.. Unlike the listings model, the consumer rarely deals with the homeowner. We process all payments and handle customer service for their stay,” explained Holmes.

Revenues from Wyndham’s Vacation Rental businesses in 2010 were approximately $500 million.

The worldwide rentals market is estimated at $85 billion.

Wyndham believes there is plenty of room for both models to grow. Revenues were $356 million in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 19 percent compared with the first quarter of 2010.

Q1

Overall, the company reported a higher-than-expected first-quarter profit.

Wyndham’s revenue increased 7.4 percent to $952 million, including a three percent increase in the lodging segment.

First quarter 2011 reported net income grew 44 percent to $72 million, compared with net income of $50 million for the first quarter of 2010.

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Booking jumps nearly +400pc for Royal Wedding Weekend

London hotel revenue per booking will increase nearly +400 percent for the royal wedding weekend, according to Pegasus Solutions.

The company’s special edition of The Pegasus View will address the impact of the royal wedding on London hotels’ average daily rate (ADR), length of stay (LOS) and revenue per booking, pulling information from bookings made through travel agents and by travelers themselves..

Impact

Forward-looking data shows net average revenue per booking over prior year rising as high as +383.7 percent on April 30, +215.1 percent on the preceding weekend, and +210.9 percent for the post-wedding weekend. Citing both the build-up to the royal wedding and the Easter Holiday, Pegasus is also reporting rate increases of +134 percent over 2010 for the weekend of the nuptials. Length of stay shows triple-digit percentage increases over prior year in the two days after the ceremony, with increases of +71.4 percent the weekend before and +90.2 percent the weekend after.

“We’re seeing a pre- and after-party effect for the wedding that has the makings of a windfall for London hotels,” said Mike Kistner, chief executive officer of Pegasus Solutions.

Domestic and international travellers either came early or are staying on through the days and week after the wedding to continue the experience. The resulting combination of higher rates and longer stays means total revenue for each stay will increase by triple-digit percentages over last year the weekends before, during and after the wedding takes place, explained Kistner.

Combined global distribution system (GDS) and alternative distribution system (ADS) bookings for each weekend in April demonstrated escalating double-digit percentage ADR increases. Additionally, bookings made through April 21 for future arrivals showed ADR increasing nearly +90 percent the day of the wedding, peaking on Saturday, April 30 with a jump of +134 percent.

Most inbound travel to London for the event is domestic, with travellers from the US comprising the second highest source of bookings. Pegasus is reporting France and Germany as the next highest sources of international travellers for the events in London.

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Apple clarifies its stance on location data

Apple has clarified that the company is not tracking the location of iPhone users, as it responded to queries pertaining to gathering and use of location information by its devices.

“Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so,” stated the company.

Apple acknowledged that providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date, it added.

According to Apple, the iPhone is not logging users’ location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around their current location, some of which may be located more than 100 miles away from   iPhone, to help a user’s iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements), clarified the company.

These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

Apple also shared that is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

On providing any data collected from iPhones to third parties, the company stated: “We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps.. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads.. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).”

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Offering loyal guests instant benefits during their stay

IN-DEPTH: Global Hotel Alliance recently officially launched its loyalty programme, GHA Discovery. Chris Hartley, CEO of the Global Hotel Alliance, says the challenge is to provide the “surprise and delight” element, to de-commoditise product offerings and provide a unique value proposition to the hotel customer.

By Ritesh Gupta

Loyalty programmes are becoming increasingly commoditised as standard benefits are now the norm - expected by business travellers and corporate account managers.

Loyalty programmes have, in essence, become a means to deliver. 

From Global Hotel Alliance’s (GHA) perspective, the world’s largest alliance of independent hotel brands which recently officially launched its loyalty programme, GHA Discovery, its CEO Chris Hartley says, “Our challenge is to provide the “surprise and delight” element, to de-commoditise our product offerings and provide a unique value proposition to the hotel customer.”

“We aim to achieve this firstly through the personal recognition of our guests’ needs during their stay and secondly through our GHA Discovery Local Experience awards,” Hartley told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta in an exclusive interview.

Hartley spoke in detail about what do the travellers of today look for, why getting the technology right was key to programme delivery and guest recognition, what works best to earn trust, love and advocacy and lot more. Excerpts:

What factors did you take into consideration while coming up with GHA Discovery?

Chris Hartley: 

Key to the programme’s success is the ability to deliver - across each and every GHA Member Brand around the world.

The technology requirements this engendered, including the enabling of global guest recognition, were central to our scheme.

We also focussed on making our programme different to others on offer - we didn’t want a “me too” points programme for the sake of having a programme.

Five years of technological development, collaboration, research and strategy went into creating GHA Discovery. Can you reflect upon the main challenges while coming up with this offering?

Chris Hartley: 

The development of the necessary technology, not only on GHA’s side but on that of each of the Member Brands, was challenging, as several brands had no pre-existing loyalty programme or central systems technology in place. This meant that in order for each brand to be able to have a fully automated and synchronised local system, significant resource investment was needed from the individual brands. Thankfully, we all agreed that getting the technology right was key to programme delivery and guest recognition.

We not only wanted our programme to be different, we wanted it to be relevant too. In order to achieve this, we spent a great deal of time with customer focus groups around the world bouncing ideas off them, listening to what they would or would not like from a hotel programme. We were also constantly looking at the competition – what we started out with at the beginning of the process had to adapt and change as we went along in order to adapt to the ever-changing environment.

We agreed that the Local Experiences were new, attractive and reflected our brand promise. However, how were we going to get all the hotels on board and come up with worthwhile experiences that were not your hop-on-hop-off bus tours? 

We decided that the solution was to bring the hotel staff in on the creation of the concept through a co-creation internal networking site where staff from all hotels, across all brands around the world, could log in and share their ideas, thoughts and feedback with the final objective of putting together over 1,000 Local Experiences for our members to choose from. 

Instead of the usual process, wherein marketing pushes a concept upon operations, operations brought their concepts to marketing.  This resulted in buy-in from day one to the Local Experience awards, and gave a sense of pride and ownership at the hotel level which we feel is crucial for the delivery of our core product promise.

It is being highlighted that consumers want to be loyal, but they want to feel their loyalty programme to match their interests and one that speaks to them in the way they live their lives today, in a mobile environment with instant gratification to any device. How do you think GHA Discovery is based on personalisation and makes use of various touchpoints?

Chris Hartley: 

GHA Discovery gives members instant benefits during their stay - there are no “promises for the future” that saving up points for prizes entails. The programme is still in its infancy, and we deliver global recognition across 12 individual hotel brands with www.gha.com being the portal for members to express their preferences and update their profile – this information is then accessible to any GHA Hotel wherever the  member books

We are currently in the process of moving to mobile. Given the complexity of interfacing 12 individual hotel companies on one central CRM platform, we have spent the first year completing our global implementation plan.  Mobile communication is high on our agenda and we have already identified our provider and are moving to production

In today’s context, it is being said that consumers are more value-conscious than ever and have been conditioned to expect more for their money after a steady diet of recession-era deals. How do you assess the role being played by loyalty programme as a tool in today’s business environment?

Chris Hartley: 

Loyalty programmes are becoming increasingly commoditised as standard benefits are now the norm - expected by business travellers and corporate account managers. Loyalty programmes have, in essence, become a means to deliver.  Our challenge therefore is to provide the “surprise and delight” element, to de-commoditise our product offerings and provide a unique value proposition to the hotel customer. We aim to achieve this firstly through the personal recognition of our guests’ needs during their stay and secondly through our GHA Discovery Local Experience awards.

What according to you works best to earn trust, love and advocacy for your products and services amongst a new breed of savvy and fickle travel customer?

Chris Hartley: 

The travellers of today look for product uniqueness, special opportunities and good value.  In order to satisfy these desires, we focus on what is distinctive about each of the Member Brands in GHA - they are regional upscale or luxury brands that are recognised and respected in their local markets. Each of them reflects the local lifestyle and culture, making you feel like you've actually experienced your destination when you visit these hotels. Each and every one is unique; they are not the same cookie-cutter rooms and restaurants around the world.  We give travellers an alternative accommodation option, whilst allowing them to be secure in the knowledge that these hotels meet the high standards demanded by the alliance.  Through GHA Discovery and the Local Experience awards, our members receive not only the stay benefits they have come to expect, but are given a chance to discover a destination beyond their hotel room through a Local Experience award that is meaningful to them.  When was the last time you told somebody how many points or miles you earned for a trip?  But I bet you would tell them about an amazing experience!

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Accommodation firms are more likely to outsource all social media functions: survey

An Internet-based survey in the US has found a wide range of expenditures on online marketing, as well as considerable diversity in organisational structures.

The study, 2011 Travel Industry Benchmarking: Marketing ROI, Opportunities, and Challenges in Online and Social Media Channels for Destination and Marketing Firms, based on feedback from 426 marketing executives, found that for social media campaigns, about 80 percent of the marketers said that they produced Twitter campaigns and social media promotions in-house, but such functions as search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising are largely outsourced.

Sixty-eight percent of the respondents worked in accommodation firms, 20 percent were destination marketers, and the rest worked in a variety of travel-related firms. The respondents reported a noticeable difference in average annual budgets for marketing and ecommerce. At $1.354 million, the average budget reported by marketers for accommodation firms was 10 times the average for destination marketers, who reported an average of $136 thousand dollars. Both groups reported that the electronic marketing portion of those budgets was increasing year to year. The two types of organisations also reported different structures for deploying members of the online marketing services team and the ecommerce team.

Findings:

Accommodation firms are more likely to outsource all social media functions, including pay-per-call, Twitter campaigns, and pay-per-click management. Destination marketers, on the other hand, generally handle more functions in-house.

Two-thirds of the entire sample said their 2010 e-commerce budgets had increased with respect to 2009. Sixty percent of accommodation marketers anticipated a further increase in 2011, and 71 percent of the destination marketers said their 2011 budgets would increase.

Three-quarters of the destination marketing organisations housed their online marketing team in the marketing department, but that was true of just 41 percent of the accommodation marketers. Instead, 17 percent of the online team was housed in the accommodation firms’ sales department, and another 9 percent in the ecommerce department. A similar relationship occurred for the ecommerce team. Just over half of the destination marketing firms put the ecommerce team in the marketing department, while that was true in only one-third of the accommodation firms. Instead, 40 percent of the accommodation firms made their ecommerce teams part of the revenue management department, and another 17 percent were in the sales department. Looking specifically at the people who determine strategy for online pricing and distribution, we again see that the marketing department is foremost for destination marketing firms, but that is not true of accommodation firms.

Well over half of the accommodation firms (54 percent) put their pricing strategists in the revenue management department, with another 18 percent in sales. Just 10 percent of the accommodation firms had their pricing strategy function in marketing.

For the destination marketers, 25 percent of firms put pricing strategy in marketing, and just 12 percent in the revenue management department. For distribution strategy, well over half of the destination firms housed distribution strategy in their marketing department, but that was true of only 14 percent of accommodation firms.

In terms of budget allocations, marketing and promotion was by far the largest single online marketing and ecommerce category for both destination and accommodation firms. Those expenditures were followed in order by commerce and conversion, loyalty and reputation, and analytics and research. The respondents reported similar percentage allocations of staff time. For the entire sample, the average number of staff members involved in online marketing and ecommerce was 3.25. The range of budgeted online advertising expenditures was remarkable, with some firms reporting budgets of less than $10,000 and others over $1 million. The budgets skewed toward the lower end of the range, however, as the average online advertising budget for accommodation firms was approximately $60,000, while for destination marketers the average was about $80,000. In terms of the percentage of the marketing budget, online media placement also varied widely.

Although the average online budget allocations represented an average of 40 percent of destination firms’ marketing budget, seven of the 87 destination firms and 20 of the 216 accommodation marketers reported online budget allocations of less than 10 percent of the marketing expenditures. Two-thirds of the firms reported that they spend less than $10,000 on social media, and three-quarters spend less than $10,000 on mobile media. The breakdown of purchasing channels for advertising in online media is similar for destination and accommodation firms. While substantial percentages of firms handle purchases internally, many also use multiple agencies. A relatively small percentage use just one agency for online media buys. Looking more specifically at how these firms handle the many aspects of online marketing, we see that such matters as Twitter campaigns and social influence are largely handled in house. Indeed, destination marketing firms are, in general, more likely to handle all online marketing functions in-house. On the other hand, pay-per-click management, search engine management, and pay-per-call campaigns are quite frequently outsourced. Taking this issue from the other perspective, accommodation firms are far more likely than destination firms to retain specialised firms for online marketing campaigns.

The difference in approaches shows up most noticeably in pay-per-call, branding, Twitter campaigns, and affiliate marketing programs. Destination firms reported outsourcing these functions only 25 percent of the time, while accommodation firms frequently outsource not only those functions, but also ad placement and social influence campaigns. The marketers were much more inclined to handle social media sites and corporate websites on their own than they were mobile apps and the mobile website, which were most typically outsourced.

Again, destination marketers were slightly more likely than accommodation marketers to handle most of these functions on their own. The breakdown of sources for the content management system was similar for both destination marketers and accommodation firms: just under 30 percent were open source, not even 20 percent were enterprise systems, and over one-third were custom written.

For most firms, the development cycle on these systems typically occupied two or three years. The two types of companies took relatively similar approaches to social media policies and functionality, with one exception. Destination firms were overwhelmingly more likely to sell advertising space on their sites than the accommodation firms were. As a result, the destination firms were somewhat more likely to maintain an advertising management system. On the other hand, the accommodation firms were more likely to provide online purchasing capabilities.

Responsibility for managing social media resided overwhelmingly in the marketing and sales department (58 percent of respondents), with a small percentage in public relations (15 percent), ecommerce (12 percent), or a smattering other departments (15 percent). Asked which social media were most effective, the marketers rated Facebook at the top, followed by Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Accommodation firms were far more likely than destination marketers to report that they maintain blogs. Fifty one percent of the accommodation firms reported blogging, compared to just 31 percent of destination firms. The person responsible for managing the blog was almost never the CEO or president. Instead, blogging fell primarily to the director of marketing, the social media or public relations staff, or in some cases external partners.

The survey has been written by Cornell Professor Rohit Verma, executive director of the Center for Hospitality Research (CHR), and Ken McGill, executive vice president of research for Vantage Strategy.

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German and French travel companies invest more in mobile

55% of German and French travel companies have increased investment in mobile in the last 3 months compared to just 31% of British companies.  Plans for future investment are the same in all 3 countries. In terms of results it is the French companies that have got it right.  45% of French companies are reporting increase in bookings.

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NFC ticket usage is forecast to grow significantly beginning in 2013

Half a billion people worldwide will use their mobile devices as travel tickets on metros, subways and buses by 2015, according to new forecasts from Juniper Research.

This figure is over five times the number generated last year but crucially Juniper is expecting usage to spread widely from the current concentration in Japan and several European countries. Outside Japan, systems in operation typically use SMS or bar codes.

Whilst SMS ticketing has been in operation for several years in large cities in Scandinavia and Central & Eastern Europe such as Stockholm and Prague, Juniper believes that recent momentum in Near Field Communications (NFC) will only add to market growth. As metro authorities begin the transition to open contactless payment systems, NFC ticket usage is forecast to grow significantly beginning in 2013.  

According to Juniper, whether by expansion of SMS and bar code delivery or by NFC, it sees convenience and choice for users as key advantages of mobile ticketing. 

Furthermore, mobile ticketing also has potential across train and air travel, the latter driven by mobile delivered bar coded boarding passes.

Earlier this week, in an interview with EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta, Fergus Boyd, Acting Head of eBusiness, Virgin Atlantic Airways, mentioned that services offering mobile check-in and even mobile bar-coded boarding passes are very popular as they put the customer in control.

“Selling transactions on mobile are still the exception. They make sense for short haul trips where small amounts of money are involved but are less of an obvious advantage for long haul where the ticket price makes it a very considered purchase,” said Boyd. “Also, most long haul travel involves friends, family, work colleagues and a lot of research which isn’t best delivered via mobile.”

M-commerce is the new way to shop

M-commerce is a transformative new platform quickly changing the way consumers interact with travel brands, says Brett Henry, VP Marketing, VP India, Abacus International.

“Although it may be hard imagining that travellers will book for their vacation from start to finish using only mobile devices, the fact is that they have already started to research and buy travel options and upgrades while on the go. M-commerce will eventually become as common as online shopping. It will come as no surprise to travel providers that mobile devices such as smartphones offer an enormous opportunity to be leveraged as a mobile tool to manage customers’ post-booking activities,” according to Henry.

The value of goods and services people will purchase through their mobile phones will reach $200 billion globally by 2012.

“Much of this will be coming increasingly from mobile payments and the use of NFC. The number of these NFC-ready phones will rise from 700,000 in 2009 to 247 million in 2015. As mobile-enabled NFC devices become more common and the reader infrastructure is installed at airports, hotels and merchants, the NFC process will become commonplace and change the travel experience at multiple customer touch points. Mobile boarding passes, payments, public transportation and social networking will allow travellers to be more connected as well as offer the convenience and speed that travellers often seek,” added Henry.

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Nine out of 10 smartphone searches results in an action: Google survey

A survey has indicated that 74 percent of smartphone shoppers make a purchase as a result of using their smartphones to help with shopping.

As per the key findings from “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, 71 percent of smartphone users search because of an ad they’ve seen either online or offline; 82 percent of smartphone users notice mobile ads, and 88 percent of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day. The study featured 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users.

Findings:

General Smartphone Usage: Smartphones have become an integral part of users’ daily lives. Consumers use smartphones as an extension of their desktop computers and use it as they multi-task and consume other media.

• 81 percent browse the Internet, 77 percent search, 68 percent use an app, and 48 percent watch videos on their smartphone
• 72 percent use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV 
• 93 percent of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home 

Action-Oriented Searchers: Mobile search is heavily used to find a wide variety of information and to navigate the mobile Internet.

• Search engine websites are the most visited websites with 77 percent of smartphone users citing this, followed by social networking, retail and video sharing websites 
• Nine out of 10 smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.) 
• 24 percent recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search

Local Information Seekers: Looking for local information is done by virtually all smartphone users and consumers are ready to act on the information they find.

• 95 percent of smartphone users have looked for local information
• 88 percent of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs 
• 77 percent have contacted a business, with 61 percent calling and 59 percent visiting the local business

Purchase-driven Shoppers: Smartphones have become an indispensable shopping tool and are used across channels and throughout the research and decision-making process.

• 79 percent of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer
• 74 percent of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones 
• 70 percent use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store

Reaching Mobile Consumers: Cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behavior and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.

• 71 percent search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68 percent) to online ads (18 percent) to mobile ads (27 percent)
• 82 percent notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads 
• Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35 percent visiting a website and 49 percent making a purchase

Implications

The findings of the study have strong implications for businesses and mobile advertisers, says Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team’s Dai Pham

Pham, according to a posting on the company’s blog, said, “Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information. Incorporate location based products and services and make it easy for mobile customers to reach you because local information seeking is common among smartphone users.  Develop a comprehensive cross-channel strategy as mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions.  Last, implement an integrated marketing strategy with mobile advertising that takes advantage of the knowledge that people are using their smartphones while consuming other media and are influenced by it.”

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