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Google Singapore boss: Marketers in Asia still don’t get the value of mobile

Joanna Flint

Flint talking at FOMA in Singapore

The next batch of consumers in Asia entering the media market will only use their mobiles to access the internet, the Singapore country director for Google, Joanna Flint predicted today.

Talking at the Festival of Media Asia in Singapore this afternoon, Flint said that, according to a study, in Malaysia, 35 per cent of people asked in a recent study already only use their mobiles to access the internet.

In Vietnam, that figure is 24 per cent, 16 per cent in Singapore, and 14 per cent in South Korea and Hong Kong.

However, despite the huge penetration of mobile devices in Asia, particularly in Singapore – the world’s most advanced smartphone market – marketers are still behind the curve, Flint said.

Asia: mobile only

Percentage of people who only use mobile to access the internet

“The next generation, no actually the next volume of consumers will be mobile only,” Flint told her audience. “It will be the only way they access the internet, because the price so low.”

“But what’s interesting to me is that marketers still don’t seem to get it. It’s a massive, massive fail,” she said. “Because no one else is taking the lead, no one else is following,” she said.

Flint asked her audience: “Are you ready to leverage the power of mobile? The future will all be mobile. If you don’t innovate [around mobile], you will miss out.”

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