ZF Mobilio’13: Smartphones and Tablets All the Way

04.15.2013 By Adrian Seceleanu

With a stock of several million smartphones and several hundreds of thousands of tablets in use at the end of last year and with higher sales expectations than for any other IT&C segment, apps are starting to be a hot topic for local companies in almost any industry.

Even those who are not currently considering mobile phone and tablet apps will do it eventually, forced by the effervescence of this segment.

In 2013 tablet sales could rise almost eight times against 2011 and the number of smartphones ending up in Romanians’ pockets could rise almost two-fold against 2011 – to around 1.5 million units.

Mobile communications companies, which have content they want to capitalize on, and companies in the retail sector are currently leading the way – seeking to offer apps with as many new functions as possible, prompting users to get their cards out and pay: the larger the amount and the more regular the payment, the better.

Apps aside, Google, the “master” of local internet searches, warns that companies have to make sure their web pages are easy to open on smaller screens, if they want to take advantage of any business potential.

The share of Google searches on mobile devices has reached 15% of the total and the trend is clearly one of accelerated growth.

Google only includes smartphones in the category of mobile devices and excludes tablets, which it considers to be much more “static.”

(English version by Daniela Stoican)