• 1 in 3 teens send 100+ text messages per day
• Teenage girls are averaging 100 texts per day

From: http://www.mobilemessaging2.com/articles/23636/1-in-3-teens-send-100-plus-text-messages-per-day/ and http://www.mobilemessaging2.com/articles/23643/teenage-girls-averaging-100-texts-a-day-pew-report/

• Skype added 39 million registered users in the fourth quarter to end the year with a total of 560 million.
• The number of Skype-to-Skype call minutes totaled 36.1 billion in the final three months of 2009.
• Skype users made more the 250 billion minutes worth of Skype-to-Skype calls from the time the service was launched through the end of 2009.
• Skype in 2009 accounted for 12 percent of the world’s international calling minutes, a 50 percent increase over 2008 when it accounted for 8 percent of international calling, according to TeleGeography Research.
• 36 percent of Skype-to-Skype calls as of the end of the fourth quarter included video
• At peak times, 23 million users are logged into Skype (as of March 2010).
• Skype is available in 29 languages and is used in almost every country around the world.
• 35 percent of Skype users utilize it for business purposes.

From: http://gigaom.com/2010/04/20/skype-q4-2009-number/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+OmMalik+(GigaOM)

• A combination of expensive subsidies, fixed data tariffs, complex service set-up and a high cost-to-support mean it can now take up to 16 months just for carriers to break-even on a subscriber.
• Consumers are increasingly looking to connect their smartphones to their internet, email and social networking accounts out-of-the-box. However, problems in setting up these more complex data services on smartphones means that, on average, smartphone support transactions take 30% longer to resolve than featurephone transactions

From a survey of over 1,000 UK users:

• Almost a third experienced set-up problems with email – the most problematic data service
• 21% experienced problems setting up the internet on their device, and 18% had problems with MMS
• 27% of respondents did not find any of the support options available to them effective
• Almost 10% did not even try to find a resolution, they simply abandoned the service altogether

• This poor user experience immediately translates to lost revenues for operators, as the abandonment rate is extremely high. 27% of respondents did not find any of the support options available to them effective, and gave up as opposed to seeking further help. Almost 10% did not even try to find a resolution, they simply abandoned the service altogether.

From: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/42928.php?source=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+cellular-news/LmiX+(cellular-news)

• In 4Q09, Verizon Wireless added one million wholesale customers, the bulk of which can be attributed to TracFone’s “Straight Talk” plan, rolled out in a number of locations, including Wal-Mart outlets, in 2009 using Verizon’s network.
• In 4Q09, T-Mobile USA added 400,000 wholesale customers – again, primarily TracFone customers, offsetting a decrease of 117,000 postpaid customer adds and slow growth in the company’s prepaid retail base.
• TracFone added a stunning 1.2 million net subscribers in 4Q09, the most of any retail brand.
• AT&T added 1.8 million wholesale customers – an increase of more than one million compared to 3Q09 and 4Q08. AT&T’s wholesale total reflected more than a million connected devices, including eReaders such as the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader Daily Edition and the Barnes & Noble Nook.

From: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/42788.php?source=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+cellular-news/LmiX+(cellular-news)&utm_content=Google+Reader

From a study of more than 800,000 Facebook users and ads from 14 brands in a variety of categories:

• There is a marked increase in ad recall, awareness and purchase intent when home-page ads on the social network mention friends of users who’ve become fans of the brand in the ad.
• The impact on awareness and recall is even more pronounced when a home-page ad coincides with what Facebook and Nielsen term “organic” social advocacy, i.e. an item in a user’s news feed indicating a friend has become a fan of a brand.
• Facebook-home-page ads on average generated a 10% increase in ad recall, a 4% increase in brand awareness and a 2% increase in purchase intent among users who saw them compared with a control group with similar demographics or characteristics who didn’t.
• The increase in recall jumped to 16% when ads included mentions of friends who were brand fans, and 30% when the ads coincided with a similar mention in users’ news feeds. Brand awareness saw similar bumps: up 2% from just a home-page ad, 8% with a “social ad” bearing mentions of friends who were brand fans and up 13% when a home-page ad appeared along with a mention of friends who were brand fans in the users’ news feeds.
• Purchase intent was 2% higher among viewers of home-page ads vs. nonviewers, but got a four-times-bigger bump, up 8% either from social ads or when ads appeared alongside organic mentions of the brand in the news feed.
• Based on those numbers, it’s still a lot easier — if not necessarily cheaper — to buy scale on Facebook than earn it by winning fans. It’s also an indication to Mr. Gibbs that marketers need to focus on winning Facebook fans over the long haul if they want to improve their odds of success when advertising there.
• Of the 18 million users exposed to the ads, only around 130,000, or less than 1%, “engaged” with them by clicking on them. But around 40,000, or around 4%, of users who saw organic mentions of their friends become brand fans clicked on those news items.

From: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143381

Here is the mobile ad request growth rate published in Millennial Media’s report

Android : 72%
Apple : 20%
RIM : 25%

From: http://gorumors.com/crunchies/smartphone-os-ad-requests-growth-statistics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Techcrunchies+%2528TechCrunchies%2529

• 1 Out of 5 textbooks will be digital by 2014.
• Although they account for only an estimated three to five per cent of the market, e-book sales increased a hundred and seventy-seven per cent in 2009and may account for between twenty-five and fifty per cent of all books sold in the future.
• Apple has access to 125 million credit cards, which would make it easy for consumers to buy books on impulse.
• 800,000 U.S. households have cut the cable cord in favor of watching tv online.

From: http://www.dailywireless.org/2010/04/19/mobile-app-or-website/