Volvo Cars is now driving straight into mobile phones all over the world. Following the launch of the international mobile site in March, the Swedish car maker will soon be expanding it to 20 markets.
Volvo Cars’ international mobile site was launched on March 6 this year. It has now spread to 20 markets, the most recent additions being Germany and Britain.
Volvo Car South Africa launched its own mobile site at m.volvocars.co.za on 8 June 2009.
“Our goal is to be leading in the auto industry in terms of mobile information and communication”, says Sofia Heddson Fransén, acting Interactive Marketing Manager at Volvo Cars.
Information to and communication with customers via the Internet are natural ingredients for all companies today. Volvo Cars currently has 90 websites in 36 different languages on 70 markets.
With the rapid technological development of mobile phones and the increase in mobile surfing, it is becoming increasingly important to adapt traditional site content to be mobile friendly.
Surfing via the mobile phone requires that graphics, texts, videos and other content be tailored for mobile users – to a different format when compared to traditional websites.
“A mobile site is a compressed website. It has less information and must be even easier to navigate,” says Sofia Heddson Fransén.
Same basis as the World Wide Web
Volvo Cars has a global platform, and look and feel for its websites. The mobile sites have been developed from the same platform and is synchronised with it.
A survey conducted in India last year showed that there were 42 million regular Indian Internet users – but 106 million mobile surfers. In large parts of Asia, mobile surfing is far more widespread than Internet-based surfing. We tailor our offering to suit the market.
“It’s vital for us to be available via mobile phones”.
Spain leads the way
The American and Spanish mobile sites are the two that have developed the furthest and the lessons learnt from them have been a great help.
The information customers are looking for on mobile sites are mostly product presentations, offers and news. They can also download the favourite Volvo as a background image on the phone.
Sofia Heddson Fransén hopes that in the future, the mobile site will be the Volvo customer’s natural link to the dealer for locating the nearest Volvo retailer, ordering a test drive and brochures, as well as other functions that are particularly suitable in a mobile phone. There is considerable development potential.
