The following is an excerpt from: Exporting: The Definitive Guide to Selling Abroad Profitably.

Harnessing Mobile Business Opportunities
by Laurel J. Delaney

For many people, checking the Internet has quickly become a habit, like brushing your teeth, making your bed, or combing your hair. As the world is revolutionized by the availability of more low-cost tablets and smart phones, the Internet will serve as the CCV—chief communication vehicle—for billions of people.

How will mobile technology affect small businesses? For any company offering information, e-commerce, tools, or deals, mobile-friendly Web sites or blogs will be the ultimate way to communicate and interact quickly with consumers worldwide. Because mobile technology has conditioned people to expect instant gratification, the information you offer must hit the mark right away, be digestible by anyone, and be in sync across all devices. What will come out of this warp-speed activity? A new breed of global mobile business leaders attempting to predict not only what customers buy but also precisely where, when, and how they are most likely to buy it. There will be an increasing use of mobile to drive revenue and profit margin growth—not to mention a further complete analysis on how and why consumers shop on their mobile devices. The future effect of mobile technology on exports and global trade in general will be huge. It will help erase distances, allow you to quickly share information, and buy and sell cost-effectively from any corner of the world.

“Smartphones, tablets, and wireless data plans are already a trillion-dollar business,” according to Antonio Regalado of MIT Technology Review.[i] Consider these stats about smart phone users from Google’s Our Mobile Planet:[ii]

• 88 percent of Brazilian smart phone owners use their phones to look for local information.
• 41 percent of Egyptian smart phone owners use their phones to make purchases.
• Three out of four Japanese smart phone owners have accessed the Internet on their phones every day in the past week.
• Four out of ten Egyptian smart phone owners use their phones to make purchases.

Take a good look at the graph above (Figure 9-1) from eMarketer[iii] to see what the top mobile content activities were among smart phone and tablet users in December 2012. What is striking about the data is how buying and selling goods and services on mobile Internet devices (referred to as m-commerce), has yet to take off. All the more reason to ready your business for mobile now, before everyone else gets to your customers before you do!

[i] “The Growth in Mobile Computing and Its Most Profitable Companies,” Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review, last modified March 1, 2013, http://www.technologyreview.com/news/511766/mobile-computing-is-just-getting-started/.

[ii] “Our Mobile Planet,” Google Think Insights, accessed April 2013, http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet/en/.

[iii] “Search Gets a Mobile Makeover,” eMarketer, last modified April 18, 2013, http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Search-Gets-Mobile-Makeover/1009822.

©Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved. Publisher: Apress, 2016. The above is an excerpt from: Exporting: The Definitive Guide to Selling Abroad Profitably.