According to a study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned Smartphones in 2010 out of 234 million total subscribers.1 By the end of 2011 some estimate that one in two Americans will own a Smartphone.

Importantly small and big business alike is embracing this amazing market potential. For instance, according to CMS Wire, 35.2% of companies are building one to five apps for internal use. These apps will be used in roughly equal percentages for sales, executives, and field services2
Equally as exciting is the potential to deploy proprietary applications that address not just internal needs but enhance your customers and prospects sales and relationships.

What About The Here And Now For Your Business?

Important to the here and now is this explosion of corporate and consumer Smartphone use. While there are enormous internal enterprise productivity benefits (24-7 near instant intra-corporate communication), the new imperative will be marketing your services and products via Smartphones and portable tablets to consumers or within the business-to-business environment.

Think of it: smart phones are now carried 24-7 by users in huge numbers and are nearly ubiquitous for most consumers. It becomes a given then that proprietary Smartphone applications are forging a dynamic approach to customer growth and retention.
Among some innovative national campaigns specifically targeting the mobile market? Starbucks mobile payment app that let some 3 million users pay faster and more conveniently and Coldwell Banker’s Real Estate internet download app for iPad.

What’s In It For You?

With “Smartphones” increasingly stealing PC thunder, it’s also increasingly clear that mobile phone apps are fast becoming an attractive vehicle for businesses to provide valuable customer services.

To name but a few:

Really, the opportunities are fairly unlimited. It’s important to think about how your business could benefit in the mobile environment to enhance, retain, and expand your customer base – then include it in your current or future strategies.

We Can Help

We have the ability to build native mobile applications on Smartphones (iOS and Android) as well as tablets (iPad, Android, and Blackberry Playbook) utilizing Flex and Adobe Air. These applications can be installed directly on the device through the various App Worlds and have access to all device functionality whether it is using the camera or saving data to an SD card.

We can also develop mobile websites that are optimized for mobile browsers. Mobile sites have the ability to interact with native functions of smart phones. They can utilize swipe gestures and such to navigate pages, or even to integrate other functionality such as ordering image tiles on a page.
As one recent example, we produced a mobile and global search app which lets users explore indigenous people groups across the globe – then register an interest in a group or groups of people.

There’s little doubt that mobile applications will be a part of your business future in various ways. Whether you go with a mobile website, a native mobile app, or both, you’ll undoubtedly benefit. The coming mobile tsunami will make sure of that!