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Tag: messaging

  • Time spent on social, messaging apps grew fourfold in 2016

    Time spent on social, messaging apps grew fourfold in 2016

    Yahoo’s Flurry this week released its annual State of Mobile report, which found that social and daily habits apps dominated time spent on mobile apps in 2016.

    Specifically, the study found that the time spent in social and messaging apps grew by four times (394%) over the last year, compared to an average growth of 69% across all tracked segments.

    In its eighth year, the study offers insights on global mobile app usage and trends gleaned from over 2.1 billion smart devices and 3.2 trillion sessions. Phablets continue to dominate with 41% of market share, while small phones now account for just 1% of the market share, said the report.

    “Over the last year, the Flurry footprint grew to track more than 940,000 applications, across 2.1 billion devices, in 3.2 trillion sessions. In this context, we define app usage as a user opening an app and recording what we call a ‘session,’ as well as the amount of time spent in the application.” said Simon Khalaf, a senior VP at Yahoo. “Compared to the year prior, overall app usage grew by 11% and time-spent in apps grew by 69%.

    Khalaf noted that not all app categories grew in tandem in 2016, observing that certain categories of mobile apps have continued growing in terms of session and time-spent at the expense of others.

    For instance, a steep decline in usage is evidenced in the personalization category, which the report attributed to diminishing value for users of these products. Ultimately, the decelerating rate of growth could signal market maturity, saturation or simply the end of the app gold rush.

    “But let us put things in perspective. The gold rush in California ended in 1855. A lot of wealth has been generated since then. We are excited to see what app developers do in the next decade and which industry they chose to disrupt, again,” Khalaf said.

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  • Asia Pacific Premium OTT Market Will Experience Exponential Growth Despite Challenges

    Asia Pacific Premium OTT Market Will Experience Exponential Growth Despite Challenges

    Vindicia, the leader in enterprise-class subscription billing, and Ooyala, a leading video, analytics, and advertising technology provider, today announced key findings from a study that explores the Asia Pacific (APAC) market opportunity for premium over-the-top (OTT) services. Conducted by top research and strategy consultancy, MTM, the findings reveal significant challenges to expansion due to broadband infrastructure and content localization, revenues are expected to grow strongly between now and 2019.

    The report explores the evolution of premium OTT in APAC, focusing on three key territories: Australia, Indonesia and Thailand. Over 80 participants, including a broad range of senior industry professionals, provided their perspectives on current and future market trends and developments.

    The study’s central finding was that despite challenges, APAC’s premium OTT market will undergo rapid growth by 2019: from around $85M in 2015 to $230M in Australia; from $7M to $40M in Indonesia; and from $8M to $45M in Thailand. Local service providers will own a significant portion of the market and will dominate in Indonesia and Thailand, while Netflix will be the dominant player in Australia.

    The study highlights three main challenges to premium OTT market expansion:

    • Broadband infrastructure. Industry executives believe broadband infrastructure challenges and limited access to affordable fixed-line services are significant barriers to growth. In Australia, the average connection speed is 8.2 MBps, about half that of the UK and US. Thailand has a similar average of 9.2 MBps, but only 9 percent of consumers subscribe. In Indonesia, there is only 1 percent broadband penetration with an average speed of 3.9 MBps. Participants view APAC as a mobile-first market.
    • Content localization. Despite the appeal of international content, respondents believe local-language programming is essential to the proliferation of premium OTT services in Indonesia and Thailand. Furthermore, they expect stiff competition among local pay-TV providers over licensing of existing local content libraries.
    • The Netflix Factor. While the presence of Netflix will drive OTT market expansion in general, consumers will struggle with Netflix’s one-size-fits-all offering. Because of this, there will be a period of uncertainty as consumers choose between standalone Netflix and competing offerings from local content providers, whose multiplatform and bundled packages ultimately may prove more appealing.

    “There’s no doubt that Asia Pacific is a hotbed of premium OTT service expansion that will evolve based on regional nuances, tastes and economics,” said Bryta Schulz, Vindicia senior vice president of marketing. “The next 12 to 24 months will function less as a test of whether or not premium OTT will take off, but more as a measure of how it will penetrate popular appetites. Among the creative and flexible approaches to generating reliable revenue, service providers will need platforms that can accommodate a range of content delivery and payment preferences. This is where solutions from Ooyala and Vindicia become vital.”

    “Intensifying OTT competition and major market consolidation, like what we’re seeing in Australia, are key identifiers of an industry on the crux of a massive opportunity,” said Vice President and General Manager of APAC for Ooyala, Keith Budge. “APAC OTT providers must build a rich, personalized user experience with unique content offerings that are competitively priced, and further, have a data-driven approach to understand audience behavior and preferences. Having analytics and insights will be a major differentiator to drive revenue and reduce churn as new OTT services launch into the market.”

    “The study provides a snapshot of industry perspectives about the prospects for premium OTT across the region. Local executives are positive and excited about future market prospects – and expect local players to perform strongly, especially in Thailand and Indonesia,” said Jon Watts, managing partner and co-founder at MTM. “International providers will need to find ways to partner with local pay-TV providers, telcos and ISPs to gain traction with local customers.”

  • Indonesia warns messaging apps to drop same-sex emoticons

    Indonesia warns messaging apps to drop same-sex emoticons

    Indonesia’s government has demanded that instant messaging apps remove stickers featuring same-sex couples, in the latest high-profile attempt to discourage visible homosexuality in the socially conservative country.

    The government move comes after a social media backlash against the popular smartphone messaging app Line for having stickers, which are an elaborate type of emoticon, with gay themes in its online store.

    Information and Communication Ministry spokesman Ismail Cawidu said Thursday that social media and messaging platforms should drop stickers expressing support for the LGBT community, a common abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.

    “Social media must respect the culture and local wisdom of the country where they have large numbers of users,” he said.

    Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but is a sensitive issue in the Muslim-majority nation of more than 250 million people. At the same time, most of Indonesian society, which follows a moderate form of Islam, is tolerant, with gay and transsexual entertainers often appearing on television shows.

    Line on Tuesday said it had removed all LGBT-related stickers from its local store after receiving complaints from Indonesian users. Twitter and Facebook had exploded with criticism of Line and its competitor WhatsApp for containing gay content.

    Ismail said the government would tell WhatsApp to do the same as Line.

    Last month, Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir said openly gay students should be banned from the University of Indonesia’s campuses. His statements followed controversy over news a sexuality research center planned to offer counselling services for students.

    Nasir’s statement sparked public controversy in Indonesia for weeks, with objections from human rights groups but support from the Indonesian Ulema Council, an influential board of Muslims clerics.

    Gay rights advocate King Oey urged the government to respect international treaties signed by Indonesia protecting the rights of minorities and women.

    “Gays and lesbians are not illegal in Indonesia,” Oey said. “We urge people who are concerned with human rights to not sit by silently.”

    In 2014, lawmakers in Aceh, a conservative Indonesian province, passed a law that punishes gay sex by public caning and subjects non-Muslims to the region’s strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.