What Women Want From Mobile

LimeLife has conducted a number of surveys to find out how women use mobile phones and what women want from mobile content…

  • The mobile phone initially serves as a “private line” for girls 16-17 then evolves to an “always with me connected buddy” during college years, gradually becoming more functional and ultimately beginning to serve as a “command central” for working moms and women pursuing careers.
  • Games are second only to ringtones for desired mobile downloads among women.
  • 67% of those surveyed showed strong interest in wallpapers made from “Photos I Take.” Further, the use of ringtones as “caller ID” identifiers is also representative of the importance of customization and personalization in mobile content for younger women. 69% of women surveyed, aged 18-22, have already downloaded one or more ringtones.
  • Women have a very strong interest in mobile applications that function as reminders, such as alerts, and help them be more productive and efficient as they multitask throughout their typical day. 70% of those surveyed were interested in reminders for things like doctor’s appointments, beating out even birthday reminders with 66% interest.

“Our research shows a clear gap between what women want and need and what is being made available to them by traditional mobile content providers, both in terms of games and in the larger category of lifestyle applications,” said Kristin Asleson McDonnell, CEO, LimeLife. The research shows what women want, but there’s no comparison with what is available — the alleged gap seems to be a matter of faith with many people despite a lot of research showing there is no significant gender gap in mobile content sales.
LimeLife’s release goes on to say: “LimeLife’s proprietary research is bolstered by that of other industry sources such as M:Metrics which reports that, while mobile gaming is gender-neutral in terms of gameplay sessions, males generate the greater percentage of game downloads. This is perhaps not surprising given the dominance of sports and action games on carrier decks. In fact, the supply of games women are interested in (puzzle, word, strategy games) is regularly under-represented compared to consumer demand.”
This may be true, but the top-selling games are at least equally represented by puzzle/word/strategy games, so it’s obvious that people are easily able to find them if they want them…and Telephia found that 55% of games sold were bought by women.
LimeLife focuses on mobile content for women — which is a good idea since in many categories women buy the lions share of content. And the survey conducted by LimeLife shows how to appeal to women…there’s no need to claim that content for women is somehow lacking.

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