Mobile Fix – Amazing Apple
Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, on Apple’s impressive financial performance and Google’s new privacy policy…
Apple reported its figures for Q4 2012 and blew analysts forecasts away with a staggering performance. They sold more iPhones in 2011 than they sold in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 – combined!
They made more profit in Q4 ($13.1 billion) than Google made revenue over the same period ($10.6 billion) – and the Apple revenue in Q4 was $46 billion.
They have $97 billion in cash – and consider that Facebook hope to be a company that is valued at $100 billion when they do their IPO.
And they still have plenty of opportunity for growth – Apple CEO Tim Cook says demand in China is staggering and off the chart and a Chinese Business School professor is quoted as saying: “The desire for this brand has already broadened out from the trendy urban demographic to just about everyone.”
The rumours about iPhone 5 are starting to flow with suggestions that it is coming this summer and will have a much bigger screen – maybe as large as four inches.
Google change the way they use data
As they come under criticism over the way they have implemented social search – using Google + to improve search results but ignoring/unable to use data from Facebook and Twitter – Google are making changes to they way the collect and use data. Instead of over 60 separate privacy notices there will now be one. This means Google can use all the data they have on someone to improve their services – and to better target advertising.
Online display advertising is forecast to boom in the coming years and Google want to ensure they have maximum firepower to see off Facebook ambitions in this space.
Everyone in GAFA is collecting data on what we do online and intends to use that to make more money. Google is keen to extend their supremacy in search advertising into display and everyone else wants to stop them. New research suggests that they continue to do really well in mobile – at the expense of Apple – largely because they are so dominant in mobile search.
Privacy
One man’s data insight is anothers privacy concern.
O2 learnt this week just how quickly people jump onto something that seems like a privacy issue. A smart developer noticed that O2 was passing on a users phone number among the info shared when a mobile users visits a website. This news spread quickly and O2 was almost as quick to change their policy and stop this practice. But this fuss has highlighted the issue that mobile is different to online and we all need to remember this.
More on New TV
As Netflix talk up their UK launch and report great sales in the US, the FT pulls evidence together that while the topline data suggests TV is doing well, when you look beyond the marquee shows (top drama, reality shows and sport) fragmentation is having a corrosive effect.
Finally…
In the week when Deloitte released a study suggesting that Facebook adds £2 billion to the UK economy, and supports 35k jobs, a new study facilitated by Google seeks to measure the contribution of the internet on society. This pulls together various sources and puts figures against the contribution to each European country. For the UK, the figure is £100 billion, with the potential to be 50% higher by 2015.
These studies underline the fact that digital is key to the economy and that many businesses revolve around the internet. Quite why some people still struggle to accept the huge influence digital can and does have on marketing, remains a mystery.
As Mary Meeker says of mobile, some companies will win big, whilst many will wonder what just happened.
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