Buzz City stats show growth in most major European markets
Ad impressions on Buzz City’s network from French mobile users grew 163% in Q4 2011. That performance was enough to raise France from Buzz City’s 40th most served country to 20th. Norway also had a strong quarter, rising to 24th place from 45th, and now delivers more than 300 million impressions per quarter to Buzz City’s network.
Buzz City’s quarterly metrics report said these two countries typified the strong growth of Western European markets in Q4, with Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany all showing growth over the past year. The UK dropped from ninth in Buzz City’s global list to tenth, but still generated well over a billion ad impressions in the quarter. India (9.5 billion impressions per quarter), Indonesia (5.6b) and the USA (2.8b) are Buzz City’s three largest markets.
It was a slightly different story in Eastern Europe, where demand is yet to be as “consistent” as in Western Europe.
In the UK (one of the countries Buzz City released more detailed metrics on), Blackberry devices served by far and away the most requests to Buzz City, just over two thirds of all requests coming from RIM handsets. Apple was second at 11.3%, with Nokia third at 6.8%.
Mobile content was the most popular channel, accounting for 43% of activity. That was followed by entertainment and lifestyle (18%) and “glamour and dating” (14%).
Turkey, which had been a strong growth country for Buzz levelled off a small amount towards the end of 2011, but Buzz City said it expected the country to resume its growth in 2012. Traffic in Turkey, which had been dominated by entertainment and lifestyle channels, is now swinging towards mobile content. Here Nokia is the top device by manufacturer, driving 54.44% of traffic. Apple is in fourth behind Samsung and Blackberry.
Women and mature users driving demographic change
In overall market terms, a Buzz City statement said that the company had seen “tremendous growth” with mobile ads served more than doubling in 2011, and year-on-year growth of 139%. More than 126 billion ads were served in 2011, compared with 52 billion in 2010.
This time last year three countries (India, USA & Indonesia) were serving in excess of a billion ads a quarter. By the end of 2011 another seven countries had achieved that – UK, South Africa, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Canada and Thailand.
A consumer survey was said to have revealed changing demographics. Female adoption of mobile web usage is growing globally – there are nearly as many women as men using the mobile web in the United Kingdom (49%), Thailand (43%) and South Africa (40%). These markets are followed by France, Germany, Mexico, Philippines, the United States and Saudi Arabia, where at least a third of mobile web users are female.
The proportion of mature users across the globe is also growing, according to Buzz City. 15% are now over 35, with the influence of this group disproportionately high when mobile purchases are made. Over-35s made 19% of travel-related purchases, 23% of grocery purchases and 21% of household utility payments globally in the past six months.