ScanLife report shows how marketeers are using QR codes

Rating: Biggest barcode readers are currently Germans not Americans

Barcode scanning specialist, ScanLife, has just released its latest [Q1 2012] report on mobile barcode trends. What’s interesting is that out of all the barcodes processed by Scanlife, Apple iPhone users have started to scan more. The traffic generated by iPhones grew 6 per cent from Q4 2011 and represented 45 per cent of all traffic. That’s almost equal to Android OS users with 48 per cent. BlackBerry OS only just managed to pip Symbian (4 per cent vs 3 per cent). Of course, there are other firms handling barcode traffic but this report gives a clue as to the size of the market. Total scans processed by ScanLife rose to 13 million scans which represent a 157 per cent increase from Q 2011. There was also an interesting change in which countries had the top number of scanning users. The USA dropped out of the Top Five whilst the UK entered it.Incidentally, the processed 2D barcodes may have been generated on the ScanLife Platform but also came from 3rd party generators.

Overall, the ScanLife platform processed traffic from more than 5 million unique users.

The Top Five scanning countries contained more than a few surprises.

In at Number One was Germany followed by Mexico, Portugal, Brazil and then the UK. Both the USA and France dropped out of the Top Five (compared to Q4 2011).

ScanLife found the same thing as Nellymoser (see our previous story here) – namely that the most popular form of QR Code marketing campaigns are for delivering video.

Next in the list of uses comes app downloads followed by product details, loyalty programmes and links to social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc).

ScanLife observes that the fact that QR codes are being used to for CRM – with things such as sweepstakes, shows that loyalty programmes can be driven from any media.

Amongst those marketeers making good use of are quick-service Restaurants (QSR) – or the likes of McDonalds.

QSR made its debut in the Top 2D campaigns by industry. The most popular place to put a 2D barcode was on packaging but magazines were still there in fourth place.

What ScanLife didn’t say is what proportion of the 2D barcodes it processed used its own proprietary technology – the EZcode.

We know EZcode has some very big fans such as BARKCODE (see our previously story here).

You can download the ScanLife report free from here.