Bango Whitepaper

2. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie………..
Introduction 2
BlackBerry and the rise of the smartphone 2
How BlackBerry users consume data 3
BlackBerry internet connectivity 3
BlackBerry Wi-Fi connectivity 4
The future of the BlackBerry 4
Identification and payment challenges 4
Helping overcome the challenges 5
Points to note for optimization 5
GoSpoken capitalize on their slice of the BlackBerry pie 6
BlackBerry breakdown 6
BlackBerry vs other handsets 6
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3. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
Introduction BlackBerry and the rise of the
This is the first in a series of white papers that will smartphone
provide key information and data to help you Smartphones have become the standard handset of
capitalize on particular areas of the mobile market. choice in the mobile phone market – even during
Bango research and product development enables global recession the growth in smartphone sales
thousands of mobile developers and content continues to soar. Gartner reported a global
publishers market their mobile sites and sell content smartphone sales growth of 27% year-on-year in Q2
and services worldwide. 2009 compared to a 6% drop in cell phone sales
during the same period. And the numbers in the USA
Including the latest BlackBerry data and points to note
were even more dramatic during the second quarter.
for optimization, here’s what you’ll learn from this
The research firm NPD Group reported US
white paper:
smartphone sales grew by 47% and accounted for
• Why BlackBerry has become a popular 28% of all handset sales.
consumer device
It’s not just the iPhone that is selling so strongly. The
• How BlackBerry users consume data services NPD Group report shows 35% of handsets shipped
with keyboards rather than touch screens, which
• The challenge of capturing identity and points to a significant number of BlackBerry style
delivering payment to BlackBerry users handsets being sold. ComScore recently reported that
BlackBerry accounts for 42% of all smartphones sold
• Optimizing your mobile services to overcome in the US. In fact, according to the IDC Q2 US
these challenges Smartphone Sales Rating four out of the top six
handsets are a BlackBerry – including the top selling
In future white papers we will analyze opportunities in
smartphone.
the broader smartphone market, the role of mobile
applications stores and how to analyze your marketing
campaigns across multiple mobile channels.
Top selling smartphones
Make sure your contact details are registered, so that
1. BlackBerry Curve
you’ll automatically receive notification of all white
papers published in this series and other valuable 2. Apple iPhone 3GS
market information – email whitepapers@bango.com 3. BlackBerry Pearl
4. Apple iPhone 3G
5. BlackBerry Bold
6. BlackBerry Storm
7. T-Mobile G1
8. Palm Pre
9. HTC Touch Pro
10. HTC Touch Diamond
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4. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
This success is clearly good for business too, However with an increasing range of attractive
Research in Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of the “business-oriented” internet services becoming
BlackBerry phone, has been named as the world’s available, the browsing capabilities of the BlackBerry
st
fastest growing company according to the August 31 , have now become attractive.
2009 issue of Fortune magazine. To put this into
Recently, BlackBerry has begun to expand their
perspective Apple only appears at position 39 while
dominant corporate position to provide a range of
Google makes it to position 68. The full list can be
consumer friendly features and their Curve 8520
seen at:
handset now dominates the IDC US smartphone
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortunefaste
charts ahead of all the Apple iPhone variants. The
stgrowing/2009/full_list/index.html
Curve takes the industry leading email and web
RIM has long been a visionary force in mobile internet browsing capabilities the BlackBerry is famous for and
technology, first with their push email technology and adds dedicated media keys, a media player, mobile
more recently with fast access to the web. They have streaming for videos and music, and social networking
achieved this dominance by tightly controlling how with Facebook, Flickr and MySpace.
their phones connect to the internet to access email
and web pages. By focusing on the high value BlackBerry internet connectivity
corporate market initially, the BlackBerry has become
The challenge for RIM was one of internet
the trusted way millions of people communicate and
connectivity. The BlackBerry was designed to
interact while on the move. The handsets have gained
connect through the GPRS or UMTS network of a
a reputation for ease of use and even addictiveness
carrier to the RIM servers at the HQ in Canada. That
among business users! Many of the world’s top
is where the email systems were implemented,
companies choose BlackBerry as the corporate phone
enabling the push capabilities so much enjoyed by the
of choice, making use of the excellent, secure
BlackBerry user. However, when a BlackBerry user
integration with their corporate systems.
wanted to browse the internet, the browser did not
open another TCP/IP connection, but instead
How BlackBerry users consume data
channeled through this route – passing through the
Until mid 2002, the BlackBerry was primarily an email RIM servers to get to the wider internet.
device – and a very good one. Executives at the
Most mobile handsets are set up to pass their TCP/IP
company tended to dismiss the idea of internet
connection through an operator’s gateways before
browsing as being something you did from a PC.
going to the wider internet. This allows a degree of
The teams in mobile operators that looked after the
enrichment of the data with, for example, information
BlackBerry were obsessed with it as an email device.
that identifies the user. When a user browses from a
The mobile web teams tended to ignore the device –
typical LG handset, to (say) the AT&T user home
in fact back in 2001 operators such as Vodafone and
page, the enrichment enables the display of user
Orange in the UK were so disinclined to embrace the
specific information such as billing data, user settings
BlackBerry that O2 managed to get the six month
and also allows phones to be set up to prevent access
exclusive on the product in the UK.
to “adult” content such as gaming, unmoderated chat
and so on.
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5. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
The traditional BlackBerry had no such capability. is liable to be presented with a different experience,
Browsing was through the RIM gateways, meaning especially with mobile billing.
“OK” behavior for general internet browsing, but the
loss of functionality for more sophisticated sites that Fortunately, Bango is able to “glue” the two latter
could take advantage of the operator enrichment. situations together, so that identity and payment
capabilities are preserved when a user switches to
Many Bango enabled content providers noticed, for and from Wi-Fi.
example, that BlackBerry users on networks where
operator billing is enabled were unable to access that
capability – so were presented with credit card The future of the BlackBerry
instead.
As BlackBerry becomes more consumer-oriented
to successfully compete with Nokia and Apple, it
Another factor with BlackBerry devices has been that has to evolve to provide the expected
mobile operators did not have generally available “all functionality. At Bango we are now starting to
see BlackBerry devices configured to route traffic
you can eat” or “flat rate” tariffs for internet
through operator gateways by default en-route to
connectivity. Therefore two different routes enabled the RIM email systems. This brings the best of
them to bill a flat fee for email access – direct to the both worlds. The only quirk is that enabling “flat
RIM gateways and a rate based on consumption for rate” tariffs for email/BlackBerry-mail also
the “internet connection”. requires the operator to make internet browsing
part of the package. We are already seeing
major operators, such as AT&T, mandate data
Over the last few years, the operators have started to tariffs for all new smartphone customers.
configure BlackBerry devices so that there is a
BlackBerry is a focused early pioneer of mobile
browser that can pass through the carrier gateways
data. This has caused some issues for
and get “enriched” – enabling the provision of superior operators and website developers wanting to
services. Sometimes however, the functionality is provide a good experience for their end users,
provided with a “second browser” accessible through but the problems are now being ironed out as
an additional icon on the BlackBerry home page. A they become more apparent and RIM starts to
compete outside its email/business heartland.
user gets a very different experience connecting
through the “second browser” because it provides
websites, through Bango, with extra capabilities like Identification and payment challenges
identity and payment.
Sophisticated though BlackBerry phones now are as
mobile internet devices, the challenge for a content
BlackBerry Wi-Fi connectivity
provider or website publisher is how to treat these
What can be more confusing is that some newer users – as mobile phone connections or ordinary web
BlackBerry devices include Wi-Fi connectivity. Since connections? In practice the device can operate in
the “BlackBerry” browser does not get enriched, it either mode, but as discussed earlier in this white
works just the same through the Wi-Fi connection. paper, by default BlackBerry devices will connect via
However, when the “operator” browser is used, if the RIM proprietary data gateways when the web
Wi-Fi is active the enriched data is lost. This means browser is launched. These data connections operate
the consumer cannot access their billing records and outside of the mobile operator’s own network, so your
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6. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
customers are not automatically seen as AT&T or Helping overcome the challenges
Vodafone users, but as RIM users. Without the
For most on-line marketers, the BlackBerry customer
necessary optimizations to how your systems look at
base is an important segment and it is targeted with
these users, your customer base may all of sudden
an optimized version of the website designed
appear to have migrated to Canada!
specifically for the device. The ability to automatically
For businesses wanting to optimize for BlackBerry identify the user, attribute them to the correct home
users, this presents a couple of fundamental country and understand how these customers use the
challenges: firstly, how can you accurately identify site is vital to deliver the best experience and
BlackBerry users for tracking, CRM and marketing maximize your return on marketing to these users.
campaign purposes; secondly how is it possible to
Bango data collected across many millions of users
enable these customers to make transactional
accessing the internet from mobile devices reveals
payments on their mobile phone bill, just like any other
one other important usage characteristic: the
phone user?
BlackBerry user base will be much more likely to use
These kinds of optimizations are vital for the Wi-Fi as a connection method where available.
successful tracking of user behavior on websites. BlackBerry devices make it easy to locate Wi-Fi
Without them, a significant segment of your mobile hotspots and connect “off-net”. In these cases, not
web traffic will be incorrectly identified in your only is there no mobile network profiling available, it
analytics reports and your mobile marketing may be just as likely to be a corporate network as a
campaigns targeting users by specific networks will commercial hotspot provider that brings the user to
fail to pick-up this segment. your website.
This raises a number of significant issues:
Points to note for optimization • Is this a new user hitting my campaign landing
page, or a user I’ve seen before?
1. CSS/Table support – Many sites rely upon
CSS and tables to achieve styling. Some
BlackBerry devices have these browser • If it is a returning, regular, customer, how can I
options disabled by default. You can detect identify them for CRM purposes?
from the headers if CSS has been disabled.
• If the user wishes to make a purchase, how do I
2. Firmware differences - The same
BlackBerry model will be shipped with offer them the ability to pay to their phone
different firmware versions of the operating account with no network or billing information?
system. The way the browser renders a site
depends on this firmware. For example, This ability, and tendency, for BlackBerry users to
support for padding and margin differs
swap connection types, along with the “off-net”
between firmware versions.
gateways managed by the device maker, rather than
3. Form factor – BlackBerry devices are often
the network operator, means tracking this part of your
very landscape in form factor including some
of the widest screens (in pixels) in the market. mobile customer base requires specific pairing
However the screens are often reasonably capabilities, of the kind built-in to Bango Analytics.
short which has an impact on what content is
shown above the fold.
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7. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
This technology ensures that BlackBerry users are BlackBerry breakdown
paired with key data including their mobile network
Over 90% of the international BlackBerry traffic seen
operator and a specific network identity. This second
through the Bango system is made up of the following
data point is vital to allow these customers to make
top ten devices with the top two accounting for nearly
single-click purchases directly to their phone account,
43% - good to bear in mind if you are optimizing your
which delivers the highest achievable conversion
mobile site for specific BlackBerry devices.
rates for your business.
1. BlackBerry 8330 Curve (28.98%)
2. BlackBerry 9530 Storm (13.66%)
…..capitalize on their slice of the 3. BlackBerry 9000 Bold (9.56%)
BlackBerry pie
GoSpoken is an innovative international mobile 4. BlackBerry 8900 Curve (9.05%)
e-book and audio book company that offers a
wide selection of bestselling titles for purchase 5. BlackBerry 8130 Pearl (8.78%)
and download to mobile phones. The catalogue
includes top selling fiction, comedy, history,
poetry, children’s titles – the options are endless. 6. BlackBerry 8310 Curve (6.16%)
The business started in 2007 and counts former
special services soldier and best selling author
7. BlackBerry 9500 Storm (4.89%)
Andy McNab amongst its founders.
GoSpoken see a high proportion of users visiting 8. BlackBerry 8320 Curve (3.95%)
their site from BlackBerry devices - current figures
show on average they account for over 30% of
9. BlackBerry 8100 Pearl (2.65%)
the total number of mobile visitors each month.
To ensure GoSpoken effectively capitalize on the
spending power of these visitors they use Bango’s 10. BlackBerry 8830 (2.63%)
payment technology to present the highest
converting and most efficient operator billing (Data from the Bango system – June-August 2009)
experience – this experience has been specially
adapted for smartphone users including those BlackBerry vs other handsets
visiting from BlackBerry devices.
In the US BlackBerry devices account for 14%* of the
“We see over 30% of users with BlackBerry
traffic Bango sees browsing the web. BlackBerry
devices visiting our site each month. It’s
important for us to provide the most efficient ranks third – four places above Apple.
operator billing experience to enable the
maximum number of sales. Bango enables us to On an international scale BlackBerry accounts for 5%*
get the highest conversion rates from this slice of of the traffic Bango sees browsing the web and ranks
the market and from visitors on smartphone fifth – two places above Apple with almost three times
devices”
the number of people browsing. Nokia is the overall
Steve Crawford leader accounting for over 36% of traffic seen.
Operations Director of GoSpoken
www.gospoken.com (Data from the Bango system – June-August 2009)
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8. Increasing your slice of the BlackBerry pie
About Bango
Bango is the leading provider of payment and
analytics products for businesses targeting the fast
growing market of internet enabled mobile phones.
Bango’s unique technology and relationships with
mobile operators, handset manufacturers and
consumers enable significantly higher payment
conversion rates for the world’s leading mobile
content businesses. For more information about
Bango Payment solutions visit:
http://bango.com/payment
Bango Analytics provides mobile marketers and
website owners the most accurate information about
consumers interacting with their campaigns and
visiting their site from their mobile phones. For more
information about Bango Analytics solutions visit:
http://bango.com/analytics
As more people access the internet from their mobile
phones, Bango’s innovative products are an essential
part of a business’s web strategy.
Special thanks to
Shaun Barriball from Mobile IQ and Tom Thurston
from Mobile Impossible – leading mobile site builders
and service providers.
www.mobileiq.com
www.mobileimpossible.com
USA
Bango, 330 Madison Avenue, 6th Floor, New York NY 10017
Tel: +1 866 528 6897 Fax +1 646 349 3023 sales@bango.com
UK
Bango, 5 Westbrooke Centre, Cambridge CB4 1YG
7
Tel: +44 8700 340 360 Fax +44 1223 472 778 sales@bango.com