The Female app economy

The Female app-economy

A revolution is happening: An ‘app’ revolution that is chang-ing the way we engage with, and think about, software. The software industry, once the preserve of a nerd elite, has finally become a truly democratised consumer market in which women are establishing themselves as fully engaged participants.

According to a Gartner report, physical downloads of apps reached 2.5bn last year. Worldwide mobile app-stores’ download revenue exceeded $4.2billion and will grow to $29.5billion by the end of 2010 1. Yet despite the high number of downloads and the financial value of the App-Economy, very little research has been conducted into how gender determines app usage. The Lady Geek/YouGov survey explodes a number of myths concerning the British public’s use of smart-phones and apps. Mobile device manufacturers and networks in particular should take note, since this report challenges fundamental assumptions about how gender roles drive choice and use.

Historically, the makers of software and the machines which run it have focussed almost all their marketing efforts on men. As women have come to make up an increasingly important proportion of the technology buying population (a market

opportunity bigger than India and China combined2), vendors have recently begun to follow this trend. Unfortunately some high-profile attempts to explicitly target women have met with both disaster and ridicule. For example, Dell’s ‘Della’ campaign was accused of adopting patronizing clichés, which suggested that the company was not in touch with the needs of women.

This failure was born of a misunderstanding of how real women in the real world engage with technology.

With the use of quantitative research, along with Femonography3 and expert interviews, this report will help companies start to understand how women think, feel, and engage with their smart-phones and mobile apps.

New behaviours are emerging, and apps are influencing everything from the way we check the weather or bond with our friends to how we order our groceries.

1 Dataquest Insight: Application Stores;The Revenue Opportunity Beyond the Hype. Jan 20102 Harvard Business Review, Sept 20093 A Lady Geek proprietary research technique

1 maps

2 facebook

3 shazam

4 guardian

5 google

6 gmail

7 sky news

8 skype

9 opera mini

10 twitter

11 sky sports

12 doodle jump

15 scrabble

16 ecofon

17 spotify

18 bbc iplayer

19 weather

20 grindr

13 national rail

14 bloomberg

1 Facebook

2 maps

3 Bejeweled

4 shazam

5 ebay

6 google

7 sudoku

8 ubertwitter

9 guardian

11 twitteriffic

12 skype

13 scrabble

14 solitaire

15 echofon

16 tetris

17 doodle jump

18 blackberry messager

19 weather

20 twitter

10 sky news

Women and Men’s Current Top Favourite Apps

“The future of marketing is participation. And the big clue to getting women to play more with apps is in the name...

application. Women want a very simple question answered: “how does it apply to my life”.

Stacy Takaki, Global Strategy Director, Publicis Ltd

“It would help if smart-phones came with a guide on how to get started. There’ s huge potential for blogs, magazines and newspapers to help women find apps that are useful or fun.

I can’t remember seeing an ad for a single app.”

Rebecca Thomson, Senior reporter, Computer Weekly

Myth 1: Sex can be left out of

the apps agenda

survey findings Amongst the 18-24 age-group, women were nearly twice as likely to never have downloaded a single app compared to their male counterparts.

Whilst some apps appeal to both genders (Google Maps, Guardian), there are clear gender preferences in the Top 20 apps. For women, the most popular apps include ebay, Ubertwitter, Sudoku and Bejeweled. Men’s favourite apps include Sky Sports, Maps and Gmail.

Across all age-groups, women were more likely to have obtained a new smart-phone in the last six months, than men of the same age. This is particularly the case among 25-39-year-olds.

Nearly 1 in 4 men will find an app by looking on the web compared to only 1 in 8 women. Although the app-store is dominant across the board, women are much more likely than men to find out about a new app from a friend. 25% of women aged 18-24 heard about their favourite app from a friend compared to only 14% of men.

qualitative insightIn the Lady Geek research, women stated that they often

struggle to see the attraction of many apps. They ask the question ‘How can this app enhance my life or help me become more efficient?’ Whilst apps like the Charmin ‘sit and squat’ loo evaluator and Jamie Oliver’s app with its 20-minute meals, add real value to women’s lives, the majority of apps are seen by women as pointless and redundant.

To explain why it is that women are not downloading as many apps as men, we could look to Apple’s recent claim that there are now a staggering 140,000 available apps for iPhone users. In this confusing and labyrinthine apps market, women are suffering from app-overload and app-fatigue, and look to their friends and peers to steer them through this tyranny of choice.

OpportunityEngage women by demonstrating how apps can enhance their life and help them buy back time. Don’t talk about the number of apps you have, but the one app that can make their lives just that little bit easier or more fun. Focus on the utility and value and make that message clear.

“Previously, women were expected to have babies and disappear. Facebook, etc offers the chance to develop

networks and communities of women in similar situations or with similar interests and women will pursue these

connections. It’s a new era of female power.”

Claire Coady, one of the Lady Geeks.

“Women are not just simply ‘staring’ blindly at sites like Facebook. Many applications and services now include

elements of social interactivty as standard, sometimes linking out to Facebook or Twitter, but often entirely independent. For example, the Scrabble-like casual game, Words With

Friends, enables turn-based gaming with its own integrated chat window allowing players to exchange taunts

and discussion of the game.”

Ewan Macleod, Editor of Mobile Industry Review.

Myth 2: Social networking is the hobby of young bored males

ww

w.w

hisp

ered

betw

eenw

omen

.com

survey findings Facebook is the most popular downloaded app. Almost 2/3 of the women who participated in this survey and had downloaded at least one app, had downloaded Facebook.

Approaching half of all women between the ages of 18-24 said that their favourite app is for social networking. About 1/3 of men in the same age group said that their favourite app is a social networking tool. This pattern is consistent across all age bands, with approximately 1/3 more women favouring social networking apps than men.

Contrary to received wisdom, one in five women in the 55+ age bracket also claimed that their favourite app fell into the social networking category4.

qualitative insightThere has been a feminisation of the web, and social networks, blogs and female communities have driven this change. This is borne out by numerous studies, and is reflected in the recent statistic that Facebook’s population is now 57% female5. Mum’s blogs such as Dooce.com in the US and in Mumsnet in the UK are becoming increasingly powerful and popular communities.

Social networks serve as a tool which enable women to reinforce their sense of individuality beyond their day-to-day roles as wife, mother, professional woman, and help to amplify their voice.

OpportunityCompanies are using social networks (Facebook, Twitter) as just another broadcast media. They have not understood that the appeal of social networks to women is intimacy and bonding. Now that social networks have extended their reach to mobile platforms, these networks represent a far greater proportion of media exposure than ever before. Companies wishing to remain relevant to this audience must find ways to interact with their followers and participate in women’s circle of trust.

ww

w.w

hisp

ered

betw

eenw

omen

.com

4Although this demographic represents a small proportion of our survey, qualitative research for this report supports this finding..5 Inside Facebook, US, FEB 2009

“The market generally appears to assume that everyone with an iPhone is a twenty-something living in London.”

Ewan Macleod, Editor of Mobile Industry Review.

“We did an enormous amount of testing with women of all ages prior to releasing our app. I’m so pleased we did this – we’ve

been absolutely delighted with the response on our two platforms (Nokia & iPhone). I strongly encourage other

application developers to consider women in their app design and messaging.”

Raam Thrakar, Co-Founder & CEO, Touchnote.com.

Myth 3: young males are the biggest drivers of the app-economy

Yello

wca

keM

ushr

oom

survey findings 40-54-year-old women are almost as apps-active as their 18-24 year-olds counterparts.

More women over the age of 40, have obtained a new smart-phone in the last 6 months compared to their male counterparts of a similar age.

Of survey participants, women are at least as likely as men to have paid for at least one smart-phone app.

qualitative insightPrevious studies have highlighted that the fastest growing segment on Facebook is women over the age of 55. The number of women over 55 on Facebook is almost double the number of men in the same age group6. Yet despite this growth, companies tend to ignore these women and pay little or no heed to what they want or need. Only 13.5% of women over 55 in the survey (a small sub-sample) consider themselves very satisfied with the range of apps on offer. Our obsession with youth has led companies to believe that resources should be focussed on younger women and men, while the reality is that older women are often just as liber-ated, if not more liberated, by technology as younger women. Not to mention that older women have dramatically higher disposable amounts of cash.

OpportunityOlder women are an under-exploited audience. The App-Economy has given companies an entirely new segment which is hungry for apps and has a high disposable income. This segment may never previously have been considered a ‘target audience’. These women have been completely overlooked in the development of apps, products and marketing strategies.

6 Inside Facebook, US, Feb 2009

Yello

wca

keM

ushr

oom

“Given the massive market for gaming apps for women, why is this opportunity being missed? If a woman wants to be transported

away for a few minutes, when she’s on a cramped tube train, to an imaginative land to explore, why is she not being offered that for a couple of quid? Once she’s finished The Mystery of the Crystal

Portal, there’s nothing else for her to do but swap gems and turn over cards.”

Kirsten Kearney, Editor - www.ready-up.net

Myth 4: mobile gaming remains a

male ocupation

Pede

r H

iis

survey findings In the top downloads chart, four games appeared in women’s top 15: Bejeweled, Sudoku, Solitaire and Scrabble. For men, only two games charted.

Amongst 18-24s of both genders in the survey, there is an approximately equal preference for mobile gaming. However, in the older male age groups, male mobile-gamers become rarer (diminishing to 6.3% in the 55+ category), whereas preference amongst older females stands at 18%.

Across both genders, only social networking ranks higher in overall preference than games, especially amongst 18-24 females.

qualitative insightGames consoles have traditionally been marketed to men. Designs of the current generation of games-consoles require the player to dedicate time at home or to carry an additional device on-the-go. We have found that women want to play games, but on their own terms: Women desire games which can be ‘snacked’ on rather than binged. Casual gaming delivered to a device which is already in your pocket or handbag is a better way to deliver the gaming experience that women want. The women Lady Geek spoke to felt that their gaming habits were undervalued by companies,

who dismissed them as being both trivial and not ‘real games’. The result of this is that for many women casual gaming is like a ‘secret vice’ which carries guilt and unease.

OpportunityAs these women do not consider themselves ‘gamers’, traditional routes to market will not resonate. Gaming companies must give women permission to game and acknowledge that these women are an important audience. New game concepts are needed for this radically different audience.

Pede

r H

iis

“Blanket marketing on television and on the newspaper backpages has, over the past few years, helped to seed the likes of the iPhone and BlackBerry into minds both male and

female. Android and their vendors can’t rely on the tech elite or the mobile phone shops to do their work for them. When you’re

evaluating a device based on an 18-24 month contract – a lifetime in the consumer psyche – you’re incredibly careful about which device, brand and platform you choose.”

Rafe Blandford, Editor of ‘All About Symbian’

Myth 5: women are considering google’s android platform as a credible

alternative to apple

kinde

rgra

ph

survey findings When asked what smart-phone they would prefer if they were to buy a new phone tomorrow, less than 5% of women (25-39) picked a Google/Android phone compared to 11.4% of men in the same age band. HTC Hero (a popular Android device) is three times as likely to be owned by a man as by a woman.

Across both genders, Apple is consistently the preferred brand, with BlackBerry as the #2 choice for most age-groups. Amongst 18-24s, women are almost twice as likely as men to want a BlackBerry phone. Android has a niche of popularity amongst 18-39 males, but even so remains a minority choice.

qualitative insightAndroid has a “dude problem”. 73% of its users are men compared to the user breakdown of the rest of smart-phones which is skewed only slightly towards men7. Google and its allies have made no particular effort to market to women. Recognition of the Android platform is low. Few women that we spoke to are aware which handsets are Android devices – and as a consequence, even if they were aware of Android, we might not expect this to strongly affect choice.

Apple has captured the hearts and minds of women with intuitive and fun technology. BlackBerry’s appeal comes close (largely due to the popularity of BlackBerry Messenger, and the fact that the BlackBerry is still seen as a status symbol for young women with professional aspirations). Meanwhile, Android is being left out in the cold.

Whilst Android is technically a rival to the iPhone, the lack of awareness of the platform makes it a very unattractive and ‘unsafe’ proposition for women compared to well-known brands such as Apple and Nokia. Previous studies have shown that women are “Reassurance Addicts”, with 80% of women seeking re-assurance in their choice of technology compared to only 20% of men8.

OpportunityEducate and re-assure women about the benefits of Android and create a buzz around the Android platform that goes beyond the nerd community. Android vendors should seek to co-brand with Google or develop explicit propositions around Android to help bridge the reassurance gap.

kinde

rgra

ph

7 Ad Mob Mobile’s Metrics, Jan 20108 Lady Geek/Times Female Appeal study, Nov 2009

Conclusions

It’s clear that women are using smart-phones and apps in dramatically different ways to men: what apps women download to men are different, where they find them, and how they feel about apps is different to men.

Social networking is the killer app. Of all the social networks, Facebook dominates the download charts across all platforms, with one or more Twitter clients trailing in the distance. Women are the keenest mobile social-networkers. Our qualitative research shows that this is because women find the mobile platform liberating.

We were surprised at the popularity of mobile gaming amongst women, especially amongst older age-groups. It’s clear that there is a huge opportunity to market games to this audience; however in order to do so, companies must re-imagine the concept of games in order to develop products which have a wide appeal beyond the adolescent male.

The most successful smartphone platforms are iPhone and BlackBerry. Symbian is a close third. Notable by omission is Android which has failed to build any significant traction

amongst the female audience. Android provides a perfect example of how not to market a platform to women: By almost entirely ignoring this segment and assuming that “if we build it they will come” - the Android experience seems to have become irrelevant to more than half of the population. We note that Android is still a young platform and that Google have huge marketing resources should they choose to use it, so there is still time to rectify this situation.

And lastly, there is a widely underserved group of older women who are becoming the driving force behind the App-Economy but are largely unnoticed by companies.

The App-Economy builds upon the success of the computer software industry, but opens what was previously a nerd priesthood out to all ages and genders of the population. For all the succsess of the IT industry, it has done so without attempting to market itself as a truly consumer market. Up until now.

It’s an exciting time to be in the mobile world.

MethodologyFor this report, Lady Geek in conjunction with YouGov SixthSense ran a survey on YouGov’s monthly Oracle survey, which is sent out to all of YouGov’s 270,000 panel members. The survey was conducted throughout the month of February 2010. A total of 78,835 responses were received. It should be noted that results were not weighted, nor are they nationally representative.

Lady Geek also conducted some ‘Femongraphy’ and expert influencers which added qualitative insight into how women think and feel about technology.

snau

fnas

e

about sixthsenseSixthSense, part of YouGov plc, is a provider of comprehensive business intelligence. We offer a powerful new type of consumer-driven market intelligence report and online information platform, designed to help your business make better and quicker decisions.

Through our proprietary panel of 270,000 UK consumers and bespoke research methodology, we collect unique consumer insight.

Our analysts are highly qualified and, on average, each draws on over 15 years industry experience to deliver analysis, comment, opinion and advice on the latest market trends and conditions across a range of sectors including Food & Drink, Retail, Health & Beauty, Lifestyle, Finance and Technology.

YouGov has been acclaimed as the country’s most accurate pollster and the most quoted research company in the UK and has operations in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

For more information about our services, please see

www.yougovsixthsense.com

about the lady geeksLady Geek helps technology and gaming companies understand and sell towomen. Our team consists of marketing and research experts,ethnographers, industrial designers and gender academics.

Our expertise lies in producing bespoke content, designing products,researching and inventing new ideas amongst our specialist panel ofthe most influential women in technology in the UK.

We also have a regular presence in Management Today and a column in The Times. Our clients include ASUS, Tom Tom, YouGov, GenieDB & Samsung. Our founder, Belinda Parmar, is one of Computer Weekly’s Best Technology Entrepreneurs 2010.

If you would like to find out more, please contact the Lady Geeks at info@ladygeek.org.uk and visit our site

http://ladygeek.org.uk

0

9,4

14,315,2

26,6

56

16,9

40,9

35,7

16,215,1

30,7

36,6

1414,1

2019

%

18-24 18-24 25-39 25-39 40-54 40-54 55+ 55+

50

40

30

20

10

0

10

20

30

40

50

50,6

15,4

31,1 31,8

17,614,9

45,7

19

49,2

19,1

11

17,6

2419,1

12,518,1

2,3

14,1

19

1,719

12,5

5,2

14,3

15,2

9,4

by age and gender

none

1-2

3-5

6 or more

Approximately how many applications have you added/downloaded to your phone?

34,8

17,7 17,118,4

games%

18-24 18-24 25-39 25-39 40-54 40-54 55+ 55+

50

40

30

20

10

0

44,5

26,6

20,1

13,4

26,8

21

12,1

6,3

19,218,1

38,1

20,5

Communicationsocial networking

which category best sums up what your favourite app does?

age

gender

If you could buy a new smartphone tomorrow, which kind would you find most appealing?

52,4 54,4 53,856,7 46,1 45,8 34,636,6

2,6 0,9 0,82,1 1,9 1,5 2,62,4

1,8 1,9 2,22,1 2,9 2,1 2,63,6

15,1 12,7 15,112,820,5 14 12 8,9

1 1,2 0,50,8 1,9 1,2 1,82,2

0,2 0,40,3 1 0,1 0,5 0,2 0,1

4,7 5,8 7,26,9 6,6 8,6 13,611

4,76,9 12,3 11,44,6 2,9 7 2,5

18-24 26-39 40-54 55+% by age/gender

Final words for commercial success in the app-economy

1. Involve women in the initial stages in the development process- not when it is too late.

2. Messaging and communications of apps needs to bridge The Reassurance Gap.

3. Remember for women, technology is not something to conquer but something that will enhance their life.

cover collage kindergraph original photo queenzbaby 89 graphic design by kindergraph