As a growing number of adult website operators and content marketers seek solutions for monetizing the fast-increasing number of their customers arriving via mobile devices, a wide range of intriguing data points centering on the popularity of smartphones shows their importance as the world’s new Internet access platform of choice.
“Smartphones are here to stay, which means your business needs to be smart, too,” states an interesting infographic from the folks at 1800NumberNow.com, which then asks online merchants, “Are you taking advantage of the latest mobile shopping trends?”
There are more than 4 billion mobile phone users today, with more than a billion of them using smartphones — and more than half of this audience is set to own smartphones within the next year or so.
If you run a commercial adult website, the answer had better be a resounding “yes!”
Why is catering to mobile users so important? One reason is that the number of these devices will soon exceed that of earth’s human population — and while that figure might seem rather high, daily iPhone sales have exceeded the number of daily births since 2012 — add in sales of non-iOS devices such as Android tablets, Windows Phones and more, and the trend is easy to see: get on board or get left behind.
There are more than 4 billion mobile phone users today, with more than a billion of them using smartphones — and more than half of this audience is set to own smartphones within the next year or so.
It’s not just the quantity of these users, but their quality that is a factor; with not only greater affluence, but greater age, defining today’s smartphone marketplace:
Most smartphones are owned by 18-29 year olds (88 percent), with 68 percent of 30-49 year olds and 40 percent of 50-60 year olds pocketing the devices, while 11 percent of 65+ year olds also use smartphones — and those 17 and under are the least likely owners (although this younger group could be the earliest adopters of wearable devices).
Look at it this way: targeting smartphones means targeting adults (an important factor for adult content promoters), and a good idea, as those users enjoy higher income levels.
Another major factor in the profitability of the mobile marketplace is its propensity for purchasing the content it needs — especially when dealing with iOS users who have been conditioned to pay nominal amounts for instant access to content and apps through the platform’s relatively closed distribution channels, such as iTunes and The AppStore.
For example, 60 percent of smartphone owners download apps, of which 25 percent are paid-for premium apps — of course, this means that three quarters of content is free — but with an average of a dozen apps per user, that still leaves plenty of room for sales.
Underscoring the importance of the process is the finding that by 2015, smartphones will be used to conduct more than $163 billion in worldwide sales, and that by 2019, half of the smartphone users will employ their device as their preferred payment mechanism, using e-wallets and other technologies.
Many merchants want to get in on this shopping spree, and are taking steps to do so; both in the interest of better customer service and in the interest of their own bottom line.
“There’s no stopping the smartphone revolution,” concludes the infographic, sassily noting that “you’re either with us, or you’re with us.”
That “us” includes you and your customers, too.