The warning comes after Apple recently claimed over 6.5 billion app downloads from its App Store, Android claimed a 43% increase in marketshare, and social networking site Facebook released stats on mobile access.
“While they sound impressive, for a brand looking to invest in mobile and for those developers looking to deliver solutions, these stats from the various platform providers are essentially empty,” warns Michael Tomlins, managing director, InfoMedia Services.
“What is the proportion of premium downloads? How much do end users spend ‘inside’ the apps? How many apps are downloaded per customer? How long is an app held on a device before it is discarded? How many updates are downloaded? Without answers to these questions, developers and brands have no idea of the real reach and engagement of a mobile strategy.”
“When it comes to the competition between operating systems and the associated hardware, the grandstanding of these numbers is not actually helping push mobile forward. We have already seen examples of big names postpone investment because they cannot get an accurate figure for the return and revenue that an app, or indeed an entire mobile strategy, might generate.
“If the likes of Apple, Google, Blackberry and Nokia are serious about opening up apps to the B2B market, they will need to start adding some real substance to the figures they release to demonstrate the very real ROI that mobile can deliver.”