Google Phone: Build It and They Will Buy It
Survey respondents show more than a passing interest in phones branded by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Say all of the speculation proved true and Google released its own branded phone. Would you buy it? One hundred out of 500, or 20 percent, of people surveyed said they would be interested in purchasing a Google phone, according to results released Oct. 11 by The Kelsey Group.
Kelsey asked 500 current mobile phone users aged 18 or over in the United States whether or not they would buy Web-based mobile phones from Internet portal providers such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL. These search portals see the mobile space as the next fertile ground on which to sell online advertising. Kelsey expects U.S. mobile search advertising revenues to grow from $33.2 million in 2007 to $1.4 billion in 2012. Of the portals, Microsoft led the voters with 22 percent. Yahoo followed Google (20 percent) with 18 percent, and 10 percent of the respondents said they would buy a phone offered by AOL.
Companies that already offer Internet-driven phone services led the voting, with Verizon (38 percent), AT&T (36 percent) and even Apple (25 percent), whose iPhone is sold exclusively by AT&T, all grabbing the most votes. Read more here about competition in the mobile advertising market. But report author Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director of Interactive Local Media at The Kelsey Group, in Princeton, N.J., didnt expect the gap between the carriers and the Internet companies to be so small. Booth had been expecting the portals to garner about 10 percent of the votes each. more >>>