Asiya Bakht
Apr 29, 2010

VIDEO: MMA on why there are more mobile phones than toothbrushes in the world

SINGAPORE - A statistic quoted at the recently concluded Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Forum in Singapore stated there are more mobile phones than there are toothbrushes globally and more mobile phone than toilets in India. Media spoke to four experts at the event for their opinion on the matter.

As the penetration of mobile phones takes off in Asia, the optimism around mobile marketing has never been higher.

Rahul Welde, head of media for AMET at Unilever, thinks that even though mobile marketing is in its infancy in Asia, the potential is huge because of the scale. He adds that one of the disadvantages however is the low penetration of smartphones which makes advertising a difficult proposition. In his interview with Media, he talks about what Unilever is doing in the sphere.





Derek Callow, head of marketing at Google Southeast Asia, says that a big focus for Google is its location offerings on mobile since one-third of its search has a location aspect to it. According to him, Google has seen a positive growth rate in mobile searches in Southeast Asia with mobile search traffic overtaking desktop search traffic in some countries. 





Rohit Dadwal, the managing director of the Mobile Marketing Association for Asia Pacific, thinks mobile marketing has finally moved from experimentation stage to implementation stage. According to Dadwal, the sheer size of the audience along with the different stages of evolution between countries in Asia Pacific opens up many opportunities, the biggest being the roll out of 3G. In his interview with Media, he talks about his key takeways from the conference.





Emmanuel Allix, vice president and managing director of InMobi in Asia Pacific, thinks that one of the key trends we are likely to see this year in Asia is the acceleration of mobile commerce. According to him, as mobile becomes the first screen overtaking the number of TV screen, we are also likely to see more brand campaigns launched on the platform.




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