What’s happening in mobile around the world
Mobile charity donations booming in Australia
PayPal announced last week that mobile charity donations in Australia have almost quadrupled in the past year. Of the $6 million-plus donated to charities in the last six months, a quarter of the donations came from mobile devices, according to PayPal.
Adrian Christie, PayPal communications manager, said “the ease and convenience of mobile devices and Australia’s high smartphone penetration has enabled charities to become an unexpected beneficiary of the changing spending patterns of Australians.”
[Read more via Which4u]
Mobile commerce coming to the lock screen
A California-based company called Celltick is looking to bring e-commerce to the lock screen on consumers’ smartphones. Celltick partners with mobile carriers that load its software on SIM cards so it will be pre-installed on customers’ phones. To date, the software is on 150 million phones, mostly in companies like India.
The next step for Celltick is to add e-commerce to its software, said Ramgopal Vidyanand, vice-president of marketing and business development. After building a user base overseas, it’s now looking to grow in its home market, where it released a “Active Lockscreen” app earlier this year.
[Read more via MediaPost]
JP Morgan named best in mobile banking
A global study by Forrester has named JP Morgan the best in mobile banking for the second year in a row. Forrester looked at the services offered by 15 banks, including two Canadian ones – the Royal Bank of Canada and TD Canada Trust.
The banks were judged on criteria like range of touchpoints, transactional functionality and cross-channel guidance, according to American Banker.
[Read more via American Banker]
Mobile marketing lags in India
Indian marketers and ad agencies are still struggling with mobile marketing, according to a new report on India’s media and entertainment landscape by KPMG. Though there are 38 million internet-enabled smartphones in India, marketers are still struggling with getting a return on their investment into mobile marketing. India’s connectivity problems pose an additional challenge, making “idle screen” and in-app ads a more attractive option than web-based mobile marketing.
[Read more via Exchange4Media]
