advertisement
advertisement

The New Face Of Asian M-Commerce: Android Sells Five Times As Many Phones In 2011 As In 2010

Written by Frank Hayes
October 26th, 2011

Mobile-commerce sites, take note: Android phones are now outselling all other smartphones in Asia. On October 20, ABI Research reported that in 2011, Android will represent 52 percent of smartphones sold in Asian markets, up from 16 percent last year. (Combined with the 56 percent increase in Asian smartphone sales that ABI reported, that means a stunning five times as many Asian Android phones sold in 2011 as in 2010.) ABI also reported on Monday (Oct. 24) that, worldwide, downloads of Android apps now outpace those for the iPhone by 44 to 31 percent, although Apple users still download twice as many apps per phone.

That doesn’t mean iPhone use has fallen off a cliff—many of those Androids are likely lower-priced phones that are being snapped up by customers who can’t afford Apple’s price tag. But it does mean large numbers of M-Commerce customers will be using Android phones. That could actually make life easier for M-Commerce developers: With the market mainly split between spendthrift iPhone customers and more numerous cheapskate Android users, developers can decide who they want to target and how to make their mobile sites work well with either group—or both.

Posted in E-Commerce, IT Strategy/Industry, Mobile/Wireless/Contactless
advertisement

4 Comments | Read The New Face Of Asian M-Commerce: Android Sells Five Times As Many Phones In 2011 As In 2010

  1. Joe Says:
    October 26th, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    Seriously? Many Android phones cost more than the iPhone so your cheapskate comment reaks of bitter hatred toward an opposing platform!

  2. Different joe Says:
    October 27th, 2011 at 4:07 am

    There are Androids that cost more than iPhones. But I am willing to bet that he is referring to the vast sea of Android phones here in China that sell from $50-$150 usd. I guess you have never been to any of the electronics market in asia, only your local best buy.

  3. Holidayfor5 Says:
    October 27th, 2011 at 6:29 am

    A duopoly like apple/android isnt a bad thing. customers have choice but not so much choice that no app provider can service all of them.

  4. ed Says:
    October 27th, 2011 at 9:47 am

    There is more to this than mobile phones as Android is heavily used in cheap tablets over in Asia for m-commerce. Sharp Corporation just recently released an Android tablet that supports NFC in Japan a few weeks ago for example.

Newsletters

StorefrontBacktalk delivers the latest retail technology news & analysis. Join more than 60,000 retail IT leaders who subscribe to our free weekly email. Sign up today!
advertisement

Most Recent Comments

"Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code." -Marc

Will Warranty Enforcement Be Amazon Marketplace's Achilles' Heel?

Nathan
I buy most of my nerd toys on Amazon and I had never stopped to consider that I may be shooting myself in the foot in terms of warranties. I'll have to make a point of checking the seller's info to confirm they are authorized distributors (at least for high-ticket items). Thanks for the head's up! Read more...

When Replacing NFC, Tech Is Really Not The Issue

A reader
Folk wisdom on the net suggests that if you are given a "free" product, look carefully at the terms because you are no longer the consumer - you are the product. If Google offered free readers to merchants, what would they be getting from those merchants? Data. They would be able to close the loop on when and why customers who research on line buy from a bricks and mortar store. This would enable Google to know retailer price points, which searches are most effective to get those products in front of on line advertisers, and to be able to sell that advice to others. Not every retailer would want to provide such data to their competition. Read more...

Court To Fed: Keep The (Inter)Change

terry
This was an easy way for merchants to effectively directly remove money from a customer’s bank account. The risk of default was low, as was the cost of processing. Merchants had to install new PIN-based POS terminals, but many banks and acquirers helped to subsidize these costs by setting the interchange fees at “par” (no fee) or even reverse fees as a subsidy. Read more...

Walmart Sales Tax Snafu: How Did They Get This So Wrong?

Paula
I've been in the industry for a thousand years and didn't know about these "collection fees". Actually checked with my former boss, a COO of a major multichannel retailer, and neither he nor his CFO knew about it either, even though his company is taking advantage of it in a couple of states. Read more...

PCI's Not-So-Open Global Forum

Marc
I agree with your premise that the PCI SSC needs to do a better job of communicating with POs. I don't agree with your QSAs interpretation of PA-DSS requirements. 4.2.7 is not specific to user accounts with user databases. "4.2 Payment application must provide an audit trail to reconstruct the following events: 4.2.7 Creation and deletion of system-level objects within or by the application." The standard interpretation, in my experience, is that the application must provide an audit trail for system events. Read more...
Stephen Ames, CISA, CISSP
I received confirmation from the PCI Council's director of data security standards that my PA-QSA was not exacly spot on with his guidance. Without getting into too much detail, my application in question is compliant with PA-DSS 4.2 out-of-the-box. I'll be having a conversation with my PA-QSA about this. Read more...

Why Did Gonzales Hackers Like European Cards So Much Better?

David True
I am still unclear about the core point here-- why higher value of European cards. Supply and demand, yes, makes sense. But the fact that the cards were chip and pin (EMV) should make them less valuable because that demonstrably reduces the ability to use them fraudulently. Did the author mean that the chip and pin cards could be used in a country where EMV is not implemented--the US--and this mis-match make it easier to us them since the issuing banks may not have as robust anti-fraud controls as non-EMV banks because they assumed EMV would do the fraud prevention for them Read more...
Marc
Two possible reasons that I can think of and have seen in the past - 1) Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code. 2) Also, in offline chip countries the card determines whether or not a transaction is approved, not the issuer. In my experience, European issuers haven't developed the same checks on authorization requests as US issuers. So, these cards might be more valuable because they are more likely to get approved. Read more...
Biff Matthews
A smart card slot in terminals doesn't mean there is a reader or that the reader is activated. Then, activated reader or not, the U.S. processors don't have apps certified or ready to load into those terminals to accept and process smart card transactions just yet. Don't get your card(t) before the terminal (horse). Read more...
Mimi Hart
The marketplace does speak. More fraud capacity translates to higher value for the stolen data. Because nearly 100% of all US transactions are authorized online in real time, we have less fraud regardless of whether the card is Magstripe only or chip and PIn. Hence, $10 prices for US cards vs $25 for the European counterparts. Read more...
A reader
@David True. The European cards have both an EMV chip AND a mag stripe. Europeans may generally use the chip for their transactions, but the insecure stripe remains vulnerable to skimming, whether it be from a false front on an ATM or a dishonest waiter with a handheld skimmer. If their stripe is skimmed, the track data can still be cloned and used fraudulently in the United States. If European banks only detect fraud from 9-5 GMT, that might explain why American criminals prefer them over American bank issued cards, who have fraud detection in place 24x7. Read more...

Changing Terms of Service? Be Ready For A Class Action Lawsuit

Bernard Regier
Very enlightening article. In regards to policy statements/terms of service, why hasn't Craigslist been sued up the wahoo for not allowing users to cancel their memberships? Of their many uncouth business practices, including complete lack of accountability and doling out strange, arbitrary punishments to out-of-line members(see customerservicescoreboard.com for 8-9 hundred horror stories), disallowing individuals to terminate service seems the most unlawful. I don't know anything about contractual law or online regulations, but If I owned a store, I could refuse or restrict service to anyone or lock them out if necessary; what I CAN'T do is lock them in!Your thoughts? Read more...
StorefrontBacktalk
Our apologies. Due to legal and security copyright issues, we can't facilitate the printing of Premium Content. If you absolutely need a hard copy, please contact customer service.