Where should I go for international mobile research?
December 23, 2013 10:30 AM   Subscribe

I work in product marketing for a mobile company. As 2013 draws to a close, I am thinking about strategies for growth in 2014. One big area is ramping up international growth. I am currently in the information gathering phrase. I am reading up a lot on mobile and international markets. I would love to travel and gather information to accomplish the following goals:

-Conduct market research (what is the culture? what are the attitudes towards the industry I am working in?)
-Have in person presence (attend major conferences, be available for meetings in person for potential partnerships)
-Assess opportunities (albeit vague, but I truly think being at a place gives you valuable insights about where the culture is going)

My question for the internets: where should I begin as potential countries to go to in respect for mobile usage? More background: I work at an Enterprise SaaS company. Disregard language barrier.

I have two directions I can go in: go to the countries that are most like the U.S.: U.K., Australia, Europe, etc. They have the highest mobile penetration. Or I can go in the opposite direction: go to fast growing countries that have low mobile penetration but huge opportunity for growth: Russia, China, Brazil, etc.

Thoughts are appreciated. I may post on here a few months later with more detailed questions so thank you for reading :)

PS: Length of time is undetermined. Probably at least a month, with a maximum of six months. Would want to go to multiple countries.
posted by pando11 to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)
 
Here's a site with statistics for mobile penetration.

FYI, the US Mobile market is far behind certain countries in Asia, for example Korea, Japan and pretty far behind Europe as far as bandwidth is concerned. It's appalling really.

Here are some cool inforgraphics.

So, what countries can you penetrate easily, (for example, without having to have different languages, or ForEX conversions) where can you get the most bang for your buck.

If this is real, and not a boondoggle way for you to travel all over the place, then you need to know what your CEO thinks the International Growth Strategy is for your product.

It can't just be driven by Mobile availability, because every place in the world now has mobile telecommunicaitons and most folks are getting their stuff via Smartphone.

In fact, most developing economies skipped over land-lines and went straight to mobile.

Another thought:

Who is your customer? Are you B2C, B2B?

It really does depend.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:39 AM on December 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think you should just go on a vacation for six months.
posted by oceanjesse at 9:33 PM on December 23, 2013


LIRNEAsia
posted by k8t at 2:23 AM on December 25, 2013


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