Cambridge, UK – May 12 2010 Taptu, the search and discovery engine that indexes touch-screen content, reveals in its second quarterly report that the Mobile Touch Web has grown 35 percent since last quarter, which represents a 232 percent annual growth rate. This puts its growth rate ahead of the App Store, currently showing an annual growth of 144 percent, but behind the Android Market growing at an annual rate of 403 percent, albeit from a smaller base.
The report, which covers January 2010-April 2010, also shows Mobile Touch Web sites rose to 440,100 from 326,600 in January. At this current run rate, the report predicts that the Mobile Touch Web will increase to 1.1 million sites by the end of the year, nearly twice Taptu’s original forecast, and nearly a full year ahead of our January prediction, fueled in part by the continued consumer love affair with touch-screen phones, and even more importantly the rising sales of mid-range touch-enabled devices.
Looking more closely at the types of applications and services on the Mobile Touch Web, mCommerce continues to dominate, representing over 22 percent of all touch-enabled sites. In comparison, games dominate the App Store making up 17.7 percent of total apps (MobiClix, April 2010).
Steve Ives, Taptu CEO, said: “The strong growth we observed over this quarter really took us by surprise but with device shipments of touch screen phones forecast by Gartner to reach 360m for 2010 it seems brands and content owners are waking up to this new mass-market medium. It’s also crucial to note that the iPhone represents at most 10 percent of device forecasts. With mass-market touch-screen devices flooding the market, many without app stores, the Mobile Touch Web is meeting this consumer demand.”
Key Findings From Taptu’s Quarterly Report Analyzing the Growth of the Mobile Touch Web:
The number of touch-friendly websites is dramatically higher than just 4 months ago. At the end of 2010, we found 326,600 touch-friendly websites. In April 2010, that number has increased to 440,100 sites. This represents a 35 percent increase in the quarter and an annual growth rate of 232 percent.
App Store numbers are up too, showing a comparative annual growth rate of 144 percent up to 185,000 apps. The largest growth has been in the Android Market, now showing 35,947 apps and an annual growth rate of 403 percent.
The iPhone is a strong platform, but it only accounts for 10 percent of the worldwide market of touch-screen devices. If a company simply employs an iPhone application as their sole mobile strategy, they are only pursuing 10 percent of the market.
mCommerce/ Shopping & Services continue to dominate the Mobile Touch Web, representing over 22 percent of the 440,100 sites compared to the App Store where equivalent services represent fewer than 4 percent.
Virtual Roundtable Looks At the Future of the Mobile Touch Web
The growth of touch content and the rising forecasts for touch-screen phone shipments have far-reaching implications for the industry, from agencies, to user experience (UX) design, to commerce to advertising. To get more insight into these burgeoning issues, Taptu asked leading industry figures for their opinions in a “virtual roundtable”. Please download the slideshow for more insight such as Jason Grigsby’s below.
Grigsby, co-founder of mobile agency Cloud Four says, “The reality is that if mobile is going to live up to its promise, we need a future without gatekeepers. It isn’t hard to conceive of a future where more people have smartphones than have PCs. In some countries, people get more news from their mobile phones than they do from their desktop computers… we need to ensure that we have the freedom to publish what we want without restrictions.”
Supporting Assets
Get the info graphics illustrating the key report findings http://flickr.com/taptu
Download the full report “State of the Mobile Touch Web – April 2010″ http://taptu.com/metrics
Implications of Touch Web for You – Taptu’s Virtual Roundtable http://www.slideshare.net/secret/2UUAJuFclhH3gj
New to the Touch Web? See the Introductory deck http://www.slideshare.net/taptu/
Read Taptu’s blog: http://taptu.com/blog
