Mobile

The allure of digital banking is typically its convenience, and ironically, the less banking customers go into physical branches, the more likely they are to interact with their financial institutions.

Any parent who has ever watched their child hunched over their smartphone, furiously tapping away, may have wondered – “What exactly are they doing?” And, “Should I check their phone?”

Attracting potential travelers is a constant balancing act for advertisers.

Smartphones and tablets continue to ingratiate themselves with mobile phone users. Smartphones became the norm in the past couple of years, and now tablets too are settling into that territory. That’s according to data from research company Frank N. Magid Associates, which found that the number of US mobile phone users who owned or used a smartphone this year reached 74%, up from 58% the previous year. The tablet ownership rate among this group saw an even more dramatic increase, reaching above half of mobile phone users in 2013, up from 33% in 2012.

T-Mobile announced a multi-year partnership with international singer, songwriter and Grammy Award-winning music icon, Shakira.

Smartphones are the all-purpose device-of-choice among mothers, according to an August study from BabyCenter, which found that in the past year alone, the number of US mothers using smartphones increased nearly 34%. And 46% of these mothers admitted being addicted to their smartphones. In fact, when asked which device they would keep if they could only choose one, more than seven out of 10 mothers who owned a smartphone, tablet and PC said they would keep their smartphones and scrap the rest.

Native advertising may still be a format brands and publishers are experimenting with, but that doesn’t mean they are slowing down rollouts of native content.

Whether checking in at a coffee shop or finding a tailor down the block, the prevalence of smartphones has turned mobile users into active sharers of their location and searchers for nearby establishments. And these two trends offer significant opportunity to advertisers and retailers, as social-local-mobile integration can help businesses better target users in the right place at the right time.

  A joint study issued by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Neustar, Inc. revealed that a staggering 85 percent of marketers believe that mobile is a gateway to new markets and audiences.

  Brand marketer mobile budgets surged 142 percent between 2011 and 2013, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) analysis of figures released today in a new IAB study, produced by Ovum, which updates the landmark “Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising” survey of 2011.

  Fully 91% of American adults own a cell phone and many use the devices for much more than phone calls.

Restaurants around the world are seeing the value in digital marketing, especially programs that can increase customer loyalty and help establishments get the word out among like-minded diners.

  63% of adult cell owners now use their phones to go online, a figure that has doubled since we first started tracking internet usage on cell phones in 2009. In addition, 34% of these cell internet users say that they mostly go online using their cell phone. That means that 21% of all adult cell owners now do most of their online browsing using their mobile phone—and not some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer.

  Mercator Advisory Group is releasing the first in a series of eight reports on consumer payments and banking channels, CustomerMonitor Survey Series 2013 Insight reports, based on primary research conducted with an expanded panel of over 3,000 U.S. adult consumers reflective of the U.S. Bureau of the Census demographic profile of U.S. adult households to gain deeper insight into subsegments of the market.

How big can your phone actually become and still be considered a phone?

According to Kids and Apps: A New Era of Play, the latest report from global information company, The NPD Group, 79 percent of parents with children ages 2 – 14 report that they or their children own some type of mobile device, such as a traditional cell phone, smartphone, or tablet; up from 63 percent last year.

  88% of consumers use mobile devices and PCs when planning a purchase. Here’s a look at the changing behaviors of mobile shoppers.

Brazilian businesses have a higher level of maturity than their emerging market peers when it comes to mobility strategies and funding plans, as 93 percent of CIOs in Brazil agree or strongly agree that mobility will provide significant new sources of revenue, according to Accenture.

The US mobile ad market is coalescing around two major players, based on eMarketer’s latest estimates of US digital ad spending.