The ITU is 100% wrong on mobile phone penetration, IMHO

The ITU (the International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency that looks after ICT – information and communication technologies) has produced a useful update on ICT facts and figures. The report is well worth reading and shows, amongst other things: As more and more mobile phones are bought, the growth is slowing. In 2005/6 the global growth rate in cellular subscriptions was just under 25%. In 2012/13 it was down to just over 5%. In the developing world the growth has fallen from over 30% in 2005/6 to just over 6% now. None of which is surprising, but it is nice to know the numbers. The internet continues to grow in all regions and globally. With 77% in the developed world having internet access, and 31% in the developing world. Globally just under 3 billion people are using the internet, almost 40% of the population. About 50% of the households with access to the internet are in the developing world (although that is a much lower penetration rate than in the developed world, 28% in the developing world and 78% in the developed world). Fixed-broadband is much cheaper in the developed world than the developing world, although the price has been […]

Analysis, the difference between qual and quant

Earlier this month, NewMR held its first Explode-A-Myth session and my contribution was a discussion why there is no method that is a melange of qual and quant, because the underlying paradigms are different. Through the Q&A session at that event, and in particular a question from Betsy Leichliter, I gained a clearer understanding of the core difference between qual and quant. Betsy asked “So should the ‘qual’ or ‘quant’ labels be driven by the method of analysis, not necessarily the method of “data collection”?”. I think this question from Betsy is the best answer to the question about what is the difference between qual and quant I have seen. Within reason, any data can be assessed quantitatively or qualitatively. Of course, there are some limits to both approaches. A very small amount of data is likely to produce findings that are hard to generalise. We can count the sales of brand X, in one store, on one day, but it is hard to draw any inferences about the world from that. Similarly, ten-thousand open-ended responses could only be assessed qualitatively with a large team, or a large amount of time. The quantitative approach is based on an assumption that there […]

How do clients move 20 to 30 minute tracking studies onto smartphones?

As I mentioned in earlier posts. NewMR is involved in the creation of a new book, provisionally called the Handbook of Mobile Market Research. We will be publishing a lot of our work online, as the book progresses, to share our learning, to invite comments, and hopefully elicit extra material. Much of the material we are gathering is available via our Mobile Market Research Resources page. The post published on this page is a piece of ‘work in progress’ from one of the chapters in the new book. The chapter will look at key debates in mobile market research, and this post addresses the question “How do clients move 20 to 30 minute tracking studies onto smartphones?“. We have access to some raw data and studies to back up the points in this post, but we’d love to have more, and I have flagged up in the post where we are particularly looking for more material. So, if you’d like to contribute: comment here, comment in the NewMR LinkedIn group or email us via admin@newmr.org. Note, this work remains our copyright, or at least until it is transferred to the publishers. If you use it, or quote from it, please […]

What are the Key Debates in Mobile Market Research?

I am involved in a new book, which we hope will be published early in 2014. As with The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research, I will be sharing the project with the #NewMR community and would hope to receive as much help and support as I received last time (all those who contributed are listed in the book). We should be able to publicise the publisher and the team shortly (final negotiations are taking place at the moment). The book will be informed by the work I have done with Navin William and Reg Baker to create a mobile marketing research course for the University of Georgia’s Principles of Marketing Research course – which will be available shortly. The first question So, here is our first question to the market research community. What are the key debates about mobile market research? My feeling is that the key debates in mobile market research are: How do clients move 20 to 30 minute tracking studies onto mobile devices? Closely followed by, what is the maximum length of a mobile interview? What sorts of techniques can’t be completed on a phone? Closely followed, by how do we adapt techniques that don’t […]