Why Mobile Matters 2013

1 WHY MOBILE MATTERS THE INVESTIS GUIDE TO CHOOSING THE RIGHT MOBILE SOLUTION FOR YOUR DIGITAL CORPORATE AND INVESTOR COMMUNICATIONS If you are responsible for your corporate and investor communications you need to read this guide. Internet traffic from mobile devices has doubled every year for the past three years: you need to act now to cater to your mobile audience. APRIL 2013 www.investis.com | twitter.com/investis +44(0)20 7038 9000 .Investis | Why Mobile Matters | April 2013 WHAT’S INSIDE 1 INTRODUCTION 4 2 DEFINING YOUR MOBILE STRATEGY 6 3 TECHNOLOGY FOR MOBILES 8 3.1 Screen Size 3.2 Clicking vs. Touching 3.3 Supported Technologies 4 MOBILE SOLUTIONS 12 4.1 Tablet Friendly Websites 4.2 Dedicated Smartphone Websites 43 Responsive Websites 4.4 Apps 5 HOW TO CHOOSE: ONE APPROACH 22 6 THE MOBILE MARKET 24 6.1 Operating Systems 6.2 Devices 6.2.1 Smartphones 6.2.2 Tablets 6.3 Internet Traffic 6.4 How People Use Mobile 7 THE CORPORATE WORLD 38 7.1 Corporate Take-Up 8 GLOSSARY 42 9 SOURCES 47 10 APPENDIX 50 3 HEADLINE STATS 1 MOBILE TRAFFIC % 1.9 BILLION Corporate site mobile traffic Global mobile traffic 15 % SMARTPHONE SUBSCRIBERS UP Investis IQ Research 72% FROM 2012 10 % 350 MILLION TABLETS IN USE UP 75% FROM 2012 5 % v + SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS TO EXCEED PCs IN 2013 Jan 2011 Jan 2012 Jan 2013 .Investis | Why Mobile Matters | April 2013 1. INTRODUCTION GET SMART. No company today can expect to communicate effectively unless it meets the needs of mobile users. WHY? NUMBER OF SMARTPHONES + TABLETS IS PREDICTED TO EXCEED PCS IN Q2 20132 5 In 2013, the number of smartphones and tablets This guide will provide a framework to in use will overtake the number of operational decide how to evolve online communications desktop and laptop computers marking an strategies, present and discuss the available important milestone in how audiences are solutions for communicating with the mobile connecting to online information. audience, look at the issues facing corporates in this new mobile world and offer a guide This crossover means the centre of gravity of through the jargon. The second half of the Internet traffic is shifting away from large- guide covers the intricacies of the fragmented screen mouse-driven devices to smaller touch- mobile market: you should feel free to consult screen devices. the glossary at any time. This will impact every aspect of how users are The mobile world is both complex and interacting with the Internet: from their physical fast-moving. This guide is intended to help engagement with it (more touching and swiping companies think about mobile seriously and rather than clicking and scrolling); to when they should be used as a foundation for discussion do it (on the train, at lunch, in a meeting); and, with an expert advisor. importantly, what they look at (smaller bite- sized pieces of information, more searching and less browsing). In this new era, no company can expect to get its message across effectively without catering to the needs of this rising army of smartphone and tablet users. 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 DEVICE NUMBERS Desktop PCs Laptops Smartphones Tablets .Investis | Why Mobile Matters | April 2013 2. DEFINING YOUR MOBILE STRATEGY INTRODUCTION The first section of this Next, you need to think about what sort of content they are most likely to guide discusses the want. For example, do your mobile users various elements you will need access to all of your desktop site’s content – or just some key information need to think about to to keep them updated on the go? define a mobile corporate How does your audience use mobile? communications strategy Do you need to offer access to for your company. information even when they are offline? First of all, you need to understand your The second half of this guide provides audience’s requirements, the various the latest data to help put some of these mobile solutions and your appetite for issues into context and build a business case. change and available resource. SOLUTIONS AUDIENCE There are various mobile solutions: none It is important to know whether your of them are right or wrong – but one audience is currently using mobile may be more appropriate than another devices in significant numbers – and depending on how your audience whether they are primarily using behaves and the make-up of your smartphones or tablets or both. current web estate. Mobile usage is predicted to continue Some of the more technical issues to increase considerably so even if that you will need to consider, such as numbers currently appear low, mobile is screen size, clicking versus touching and not something that can be ignored for technology support, are discussed in the long. next section, while the mobile solutions themselves are addressed in the section after that. 7 INTRODUCTION RESOURCE How important is Whilst offering a mobile solution mobile for you ? need not necessarily be expensive, it STEP 1 will involve some effort to create and Review existing website statistics to maintain it. understand current demand for information from mobile devices. Google Analytics A key question to consider here is provides an excellent breakdown on which whether your company has the appetite devices people are using to visit your to change what it is currently doing. This website. may involve making changes to your corporate website, building a separate mobile site, commissioning an app or STEP 2 rebuilding your entire site. In other Poll members of your key target audience words, how much time and money is (investors, journalists, employees, your company prepared to invest? customers) either on an adhoc basis or through a structured survey to understand The answer to this will push you in one how they want to access information. direction rather than another. The three steps outlined in the box STEP 3 on the right will help you think about Look to industry-wide data to understand whether the effort is justified. key trends. A mobile strategy implementation may take many months or longer and this is a fast-moving area so any strategy needs to be fast-moving, forward- looking and flexible enough to adapt to changing trends. .Investis | Why Mobile Matters | April 2013 3. TECHNOLOGY FOR MOBILES INTRODUCTION Mobile devices function in Top 3 things YOU a different way to desktops need to think and laptops – both from the about user’s perspective and at the SCREEN SIZE ‘back end’. Screen size – which type of device does your audience use: We have selected three of the most desktops, tablets, smartphones or a significant technical differences between combination of all three? mobiles and desktops to help you decide which solution will work best CLICKING for your business. There are others, but VS. TOUCHING most of these are of more concern to Clicking versus touching – how does the developer. your current web estate work in a clicking environment (desktop) and a All of these considerations apply equally touch screen environment (tablet or to the current range of smartphones smartphone)? and tablets. However, some of these issues are moving rapidly, such as the SUPPORTED growing popularity of mini tablets and TECHNOLOGIES the recent withdrawal of support for Supported technologies – what Flash on Android devices. technology does your existing web estate employ (Flash, HTML5, etc) External expertise may be of help in and which specific smartphones and answering some of these questions. tablets does your audience use? 9 3.1 TECHNOLOGY FOR MOBILES INTRODUCTION SCREEN SIZE The proliferation of devices has created a major headache for website and app developers trying to decide how best to display a website or an app across as many screen sizes as possible. Smartphone screen sizes range from 3.5 inches (e.g. iPhone 4) and go up to 5.5 inches (e.g. Samsung Galaxy Note II). There are currently no devices between 5.5 inches and 7 inches. From a design perspective, the difference in smartphone screen size is negligible – but generally smartphone screens are getting larger. In contrast, tablets are getting smaller. Tablet screen sizes can range from 7 inches (e.g. the iPad Mini or the Nexus 7), through 9.7 inches (the iPad), all the way up to a 13.3 inch screen (Asus Transformer TX300). In 2011, iPad-sized tablets and above had over 80% of the market.3 From 2013 onwards, 40-45% of all tablets sold will be mini tablets, between 7 and 7.9 inches. .Investis | Why Mobile Matters | April 2013 3.2 TECHNOLOGY FOR MOBILES CLICKING VS. TOUCHING All tablets and the vast Mobile majority of smartphones are Navigation Checklist navigated by touching and dragging the screen. » Clickable items and links should be well spaced – fat This is in marked contrast to desktop PCs fingers are not as precise as a and laptops which are generally navigated by mouse pointing and clicking with a mouse. » Try to avoid placing clickable This means that you need to consider how items on the right hand side this form of navigation works and ensure of the screen – most people website tools work with tapping and dragging. are right handed, so this is where they tend to scroll TAP = LEFT CLICK » Make it clear which items are clickable – there is no mouse pointer turning to a hand icon to indicate this HOLD = RIGHT CLICK » As there is no mouse, you cannot hover over an item to reveal content – you can either click or not click DRAG = SCROLL 11 3.3 TECHNOLOGY FOR MOBILES CLICKING VS. TOUCHING SUPPORTED TECHNOLOGIES Many corporate desktop websites still have functionality built in Flash.

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