Ladies, Meet Your Most Intimate Piece of Technology

This particular device comes in a wide variety of shapes and colors; some prefer it wide and robust, while others favor it to be slim, sleek and compact. Yes, it even vibrates for your discretion… Women, admit it, you just can’t do without your mobile phones.

What the heck did you think I was referring to?

Mobile devices are changing the way we communicate and share experiences, but as you’ll find out in this post, they’re also changing the way we live. In some parts of the world, mobile phones are creating new income opportunities, enhancing daily life and even improving education.

According to recent study by MasterCard Canada’s MasterIndex of Women and Technology, nearly half of Canadian women (46%) say they couldn’t last a week without their cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players and smart phones. A deeper view of the research shows that an average of 49% of women are using their mobile devices for communication purposes while 34% are using them to surf the web.

Source: glamour.com

Empowering Women

Today, over 70% of global cell phone subscribers live in developing parts of the world. In Kenya for example, mobile phones are helping women do much more than communicate and socialize. They’re helping to manage supplies for their business, find new customers, and in some cases, maintain simple day to day efficiency using the phone’s basic functions such as it’s calculator and calendar.

A different study conducted in India found that low-income women benefited by using their phones to find helpful information that would otherwise be difficult to access, such as the details of reduced fee programs for sending their children to school.

Mobile App Use Men vs. Women

To further understand female vs. male mobile use cases, Nielsen released interesting data about the differences in mobile app use between both sexes, specifically on the Android platform. Unsurprisingly, the top 20 apps, including the streaming music service Pandora and two versions of Angry Birds showed very similar usage by both men and women. However, there were notable differences in active reach when it comes to social apps.

Facebook’s mobile app saw an active reach of 81 percent for women compared to 69 percent for male Android users. Twitter also had slightly higher active reach among women 16.5% than men 13.4%. However Google’s new social, Google+, had the most significant gap, with more than twice the active reach among men (15.8%) than women (7.2%).

These finding are in line with reports that state, females spend more time than males on social networks. They’re more active, share more pictures, and they buy more online goods than men.

Side tip – If you’re doing any mobile marketing what so ever, this gives you a good idea as to who you should be targeting.

The app with the highest active reach overall is the Android Marketplace itself.

In Conclusion

Ladies, you already made an impact in social media engagement through 2011, and from the looks of things the mobile scene in 2012 is yours for the taking. Slow down and give us fellas a chance to catch up will ya?!

Truth be told, there has never been a more more relevant and useful medium for female professionals, entrepreneurs and mothers. Guys take note, or get left behind!

Enjoyed this post? You might like:  Moms and Mobile Apps: A Force To Be Reckoned With.