We have just released the latest ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report for Q4 2011. This edition takes a closer look at the busiest quarter of the year for mobile barcodes and some year-end growth comparisons to 2010.

One of the report’s highlights shows the “hockey stick” growth of scans by quarter dating all the way back to Q1 2009. Last year saw a 300% increase compared to 2010. Looking at the chart below, its pretty amazing to see just how far mobile barcode scanning has come these past few years.

The holiday season proved to be another huge period for engaging new users as people are searching for product information and millions of new Smartphones were activated.

Other key takeaways from this report:

• Q4 2011 saw more scans than all of 2009 and 2010 combined
• Over 3,000,000 new ScanLife users were activated in Q4 2011

• Among marketers using the ScanLife platform, the Consumer Packaged Goods industry saw the most scans for the first time ever
• Half of our users report being 18-34, and 60% are male which is consistent with the previous report

A HUGE thank you to everyone to everyone who made these numbers possible!  This data is compiled from our platform users, app users, and other 3rd party apps/code generators.

You can download the full report here.

Two weeks ago, we released the results from a study that illustrate a high awareness and adoption of 2D barcodes among U.S. marketers. The survey gave us some tremendous insight into what marketers want out of 2D barcodes. Conducted through uSamp’s SurveyBuilder, the sample included over 100 marketers from both large and small businesses in industries such as retail, healthcare and entertainment.

2D Barcode Awareness & Adoption

The study showed that 50% of key decision makers are already using 2D barcodes as a part of their overall marketing strategy and 86% plan to use the technology in the future.  The level of awareness of 2D barcodes was similar among large and small businesses, with 95% and 89% respectively.

When asked what the format of choice was, it emerged that marketers favoured open source formats, such as QR codes. The chart below shows the level of adoption of the different formats.

One of the main concerns from the respondents was having a code format compatible with most scanning apps. As a result, it’s no surprise that QR codes make up the majority here.

Other factors for a successful campaign include:

• Access to analytics including basic usage.
• Demographics of users and
• Ability to edit or access codes at anytime from a web-based platform

Usage Scenarios

When asked if they were happy with their experience, those that used a paid service were 50% more satisfied than those using a freeware generator. As to how campaigns were being implemented, the table below shows the top code content of choice and the top three media placements.

To a large extent these results confirm our observations gathered through anecdotal evidence. They also indicate that 2D barcodes are set to become a standard in future marketing efforts.

In 2011 we saw some truly remarkable campaigns. This was only the end of the beginning.

Comscore just released some dedicated survey results validating the growth of QR Code adoption in the United States.  The survey found that more than 14M people scanned a code in the month of  June alone! This reinforces some of the numbers we’ve been estimating of around 40-45M people in the US that have downloaded a barcode scanning app in the past year.

Some other great stats tell us where people are scanning from (both the media and the physical location):

What really strikes us here is the wide variety of places that codes are being scanned from.  50% from magazines is to be expected, but almost 12% from TV is amazing!

Some other suprising stats here:

• For a technology  that is best “on the go”, it’s amazing that 58% scanned from home (presumably where they have a PC).  This shows how reliant people have become on their mobile device for more information.
• Retail is an obvious place to be scanning, but it is also encouraging to see that 25% have done so from a grocery store where most people have little time to spare.

The survey also includes information on demographics of people scanning, much of which reflects data from our latest Trend Report.

Gender: Males make up 60% (exactly the same as our data)

Largest age group:  24-34 at 37% (we showed 33%)

Again, great to see a large 3rd party like Comscore start releasing some data on the behavior and adoption of QR Codes.   We hope this will encourage everyone to get involved if you haven’t already!

Every quarter we publish data showing the significant growth in mobile barcode scanning.  This edition is a little different as we are now sharing some hard numbers that really show what we see every day.  Information like how frequently consumers are actually doing this, what are they scanning, and how many marketers are really publishing codes.

For example, in the time you read this blog post, 60 unique scans were processed through the ScanLife system!  (Maybe some of you are speed readers, but we are now processing more than one scan per second and a year ago it was 10 per minute). 

That comes from both our app, other apps, our codes, and other codes.  Bottom line is that a lot of people are now scanning codes from all over the world.  In fact, we believe there are roughly 45 million people in North America alone that have a code scanning app on their device today.

Why is this happening?  People are buying Smartphones in droves, they need easy ways to get more information, tens of thousands of QR Codes are being published in the market, and millions of UPC codes are already on products.  Once you add all of this together, barcode scanning is taking off.

Some other key takeaways from this report:

- Scans come from over 125 different countries every day.

- 2D barcode scanning is currently outpacing the growth of 1D barcodes, a major shift from 2010.

- Over 45,000 2D barcodes were generated from the ScanLife platform in the 2nd quarter, a 300% increase from a year ago.

- Over 400,000 unique UPC codes, or products, were scanned by the ScanLife app in a single month.

- The number of females scanning increased 13%, and the 35-44 age-group increased 8% from the last quarter showing a continued trend toward the mainstream.

You can download the full report here.  We hope that this information provides a little insight as to what’s happening in the space, and keep scanning!

We often get asked if people are actually interested in this whole barcode scanning thing. Before we launched ScanLife in 2008, we wanted to know ourselves so we conducted a survey with over a 1,000 people. Results showed us that if we build it, they will come.

Three years later we now see millions of scans a month and over 20% of the Fortune 50 are using 2D codes in one way or another. But, people still want to know if the general public wants to use mobile barcodes. While we publish our quarterly Mobile Barcode Trend Report showing huge growth, we are thankful for other surveys which have been done recently to confirm these trends.

We wanted to keep a running list here of helpful reports on this topic. If you know of any others, please leave us a comment below, and we will add it to the official list.

18% of scanners make a purchase, and 50% of Smartphone users have scanned a code in the US [12.11]

Compete Smartphone Intelligence Survey

CMB Consumer Pulse – How Smartphones Are Changing the Retail Experience

MGH – 72 percent of smartphone users indicated that they would be likely to recall an ad with a QR code

Stores must reach out and touch more mobile users

ScanLife gave a webinar entitled “Understanding Mobile Barcodes” hosted by Verizon on March 3, 2011.  It covered a variety of topics including:

• Barcode 101:  What, Why, and Where
• Activating a Barcode Campaign
• Barcode Strategies & Tactics
• Campaign Examples & Best Practices
• Developer Tools & Customization

It’s been pretty  busy here at ScanLife, so we wanted to share some of what we see every day by publishing our first  ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report.  The report shows the aggressive growth of scanning traffic – up over 700% in 2010!

The report covers both UPC barcodes (people scanning products to get prices and reviews) and 2D barcodes that you would see in magazines, outdoor ads, etc.  Interestingly, our traffic is split 50/50 right now which shows that people really just want information quickly and easily – they don’t care what kind of code – it’s all about what they back in return.

When looking at UPC scanning, the results are also vary widely.  Our system shows users online prices to help save you money, but the top two categories are from every day products like health/beauty and food.  One would say that is just because they’re “playing around”, but guess what – they are actually buying these products also!  We see purchases from shampoo to diapers to books which shows that any category is open for business.

Lastly, we looked at demographics and location which come voluntarily and anonymously from hundreds of thousands of our app users.  This also showed that this is much broader than you would think.  Half of all respondents were 35-54, and almost half had income levels of over $100K!  Of course this also reflects that most of our users have SmartPhone devices like Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone.

We look forward to sharing more of these reports in the future , and can’t wait to see what’s next for mobile barcodes.  Keep scanning!

Download the full report:  ScanLife Mobile Barcode Trend Report

Get your free download of the Netsize Guide 2010 right here!

This is a comprehensive annual industry report, documenting the state of the global mobile content and services market.  It includes in-depth research and exclusive interviews with industry executives (including Jonathan Bulkeley, CEO of Scanbuy).

Click the above image, or this link.

Mobile Marketer has a good post on a study from the Audit Bureau of Circulations which covers how the publishing industry is embracing the mobile device.  It talks about how improvements in smart phone hardware and network speeds have made the consumer experience more rewarding.

“Smartphones make for a more satisfying reader experience, and these devices are more prevalent than ever,” said Neal Lulofs, senior vice president of communications and strategic planning at the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Schaumburg, IL.

“On the publishing side, mobile is part of a natural progression of news delivery that for several years has been evolving from print-only to multiplatform (print, online, PC, mobile and etcetera),” he said. “News consumption is also an obvious and valued way for consumers to use their devices with high frequency.”

Some key stats:

• More than 80 percent of newspaper and magazine respondents believe people will rely more heavily on mobile devices as a primary information source in the next three years. (more…)

The first real topic we thought we would cover is the what and why of 2D barcodes.  Like any new technology, adoption is driven by the user – what will this do for me to make my life easier or better?  So, we’re going to start with a focus on the user and get to the “code publisher” or the business later.

We first need to generally define a 2D barcode since we often forget many people are starting from square one.

(more…)