Ewan's Presentation for TechCrunch's GeeknRolla

The disruptive opportunities for startups in mobile and getting traction fast, by Ewan MacLeod
Editor, Mobile Industry Review
@ew4n
@mobileindustry

Contents
Me
The Market
Making it big
Life Beyond iPhone
Developer Case Study

4.6 billion
Mobile subscribers on Earth (TomiAhonen)
1.6 billion TVs, 850m subscribers
1.7 billion credit cards
1.2 billion
Handsets sold in 2009 (Gartner)
- 300m TVs
- 280m new PCs

Phone sales breakdown…

Handset sales in 2009
Gartner, Feb 2010

Handset sales in 2009
Nokia shipped 1.4m phones today
Gartner, Feb 2010

2009 Smartphone Sales by platform, Gartner

In the UK…
19 million handsets sold last year
85% of adults own a mobile phone
Saturated marketplace
Vodafone: 18m
O2: 22m
T-Mobile: 17m
Orange: 17m
Three: 4.4m
(TMOrange: 34m)

So what mobile platforms are popular for developers?

Source: Ewan’s mind

Let’s have a look at 2009’s global smartphone sales…

2009 Smartphone Sales
by platform, Gartner

Smartphone Sales by platform, Gartner, Feb 2010

“Nobody ever got firedfor buying IBM”
THEN:

“Nobody ever got firedfor developing on iPhone”
NOW:

Making it big…

Handset Manufacturer
Immediate distribution to millions by embedding your app
Difficult

Mobile Operator
Can also market & embed your app to millions
Difficult

Existing Media Conglomerate
Can also market & embed your app to millions; usually have media to help you
Hard

Existing Brand
Brand name, celebrity – anything familiar to consumers
Easier

Sleep With App Store Editor
An hour on the ‘frontpage’ can deliver lots of downloads
Difficult

Advertise on AdMob, GetJar
Very popular; Other mobile advertising networks are available
Easy

Public Relations
A mention in The Times is often good for 10,000 downloads
Hard

Get reviewed by mobile sites
Like The Application Review. Set your expectations low in terms of immediate downloads.
Easy

A really, really good idea
Consumers will do their own word-of-mouth marketing for you
Difficult

Being first can help
Think carefully about developing for other platforms. Nobody else is…

And remember!
Developing on the iPhone is…

With 185,000 apps, it’s a total lottery

Beyond iPhone?

Beyond iPhone…
Nokia (Symbian, MeeGo)
Android
BlackBerry
Vodafone
Samsung, LG, Windows Phone

NOKIA
Time for just one example…

Developing on Symbian
Addressable market of 300 million+
2009: Forget Symbian…
2010: Watch them closely
They’re currently turning the proverbial oil tanker
C3, C6, E5 are examples of what’s to come

Nokia C3
€90 / £78 / $120

Nokia E5
€180 / £158 / $242

Nokia C6
€220 / £192 / $296

Developing on Symbian
Addressable market of 300 million+
2009: Forget Symbian…
2010: Watch them closely
Nokia’s Ovi Store is doing well
Respectable 1.6m downloads daily
Ovi Store baked into all new handsets
Qt development
Will completely change developer paradigm
Write-once deploy anywhere SDK
Qt.nokia.com
QT Creator…

Developer Opportunities
Some mobile companies desperate for your attention

Windows Phone
Don’t forget Windows Phone, coming this holiday season…

Developer Case Study

Simon Maddox
Independent superstar developer
www.simonmaddox.com
@simonmaddox

‘0870’

0870 by Simon Maddox
Finds alternatives to 35p/min 0845 and 0870 numbers
Free app
Spent 429 days ‘in review’
Whilst Apple & o2 wondered what to do
Advertising funded using AdMob
Saved users £268,000 in one month
Launched with good press from:
The Telegraph, The Guardian, TechCrunch
Acceptance delay = good, juicy story

0870 Download Stats
From end of Sept to end of October, 2009
www.simonmaddox.com

0870 Ad Revenue Stats
Day 1: position 79, $25.58
Day 3: position 7, $120.08 <- peak in ad revenue
Day 5: position 4, $62.48 <- peak in iTunes charts
Total: $680.73 (£457)
$9/day = £2,204 a year

Downloads since launch

MoneySavingExpert.com
Downloads since launch

Downloads in the last 30 days

Featured in Sunday Times
Downloads in the last 30 days

0870 by numbers
iPhone downloads: 427,484
Best chart position: 4
Approval time: 429 days
Android downloads: 14,244
Best chart position: 21
Approval time: 1 second
Palm Pre: 1,943
Best chart position: 1 (for 4 hours)
Approval time: 5 working days
Quick tweet to @palm and @adora sped things up
Acquisition requests: 3

Q: Did 0870 make you a millionaire?
No - not even close
I've made $2,590.63 so far
$10-20 per day in revenue
I put absolutely no time into it whatsoever, so it's nothing to grumble at
It's paid for an awesome holiday
But I couldn't run a business like this

What was easier, iPhone or Android?
Much easier on the iPhone
My Android 0870 version is pretty cool
Because the app runs in the background

Which platform first?
My clients only ask for iPhone
Customers can easily buy/download app
And I can make it look absolutely awesome
Brands want consumers to have a good user experience

Simon’s Top 3 Priority List
iPhone
Android
Blackberry
Ignore everything else
The other platforms are just too expensive to develop for, and chances are you'll never see a return

Questions?
em@ewan.net
+44 7769 658 104
@ew4n

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Ewan's Presentation for TechCrunch's GeeknRolla

by Mobile Industry Review on Apr 20, 2010

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