Nielsen’s new Social Media Report looks at trends and consumption patterns across social media platforms in the U.S. and other major markets, exploring the rising influence of social media on consumer behavior.

Decades of improved supply chain efficiency and management have produced undisputed gains for companies across the globe. Supply chain management is now the rule, not the differentiator. In today’s demand economy, leveraging untapped pools of consumer demand is crucial for competitive advantage.

With more than one mobile phone per person in Germany, it is a strong mobile market, but the potential for growth exists. German mobile consumers are connected and getting smarter. Nearly two out of every three (63%) mobile purchases in Germany are smartphones.

According to Nielsen, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Donovan McNabb hold the highest N-Scores, a measure of marketability created in tandem with E-Poll, yet Michael Vick, Tom Brady, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers garnered the most buzz online since last September.

Forty percent of mobile consumers in the U.S. now have smartphones. Android is the most popular operating system, with 40 percent of mobile consumers reporting they have a smartphone with an Android OS. Apple’s iOS is in second place, with 28 percent.

July 2011 marks the first month of Nielsen’s new “Total Internet Audience” metric, which incorporates hybrid audience measurement data to provide a holistic view of online audience activity. Google was the most visited website in the U.S. in July with 172 million unique US visitors.

In Southeast Asia, recent Nielsen research indicates that consumers are highly influenced by online advertising, much higher than the global average.

Back in Q3 2010, for example, 62 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and only 10 percent were over the age of 55. By Q2 2011, only 46 percent of tablet owners were under the age of 34 and the percentage of those over 55 had increased to 19 percent.

Among NFL teams, the NY Jets generated the most online buzz during the off-season from blogs, message boards/groups, Twitter, Facebook, and online news posts.

According to first-reported data from Nielsen Smartphone Analytics, a new effort that tracks and analyzes data from on-device meters installed on thousands of iOS and Android smartphones, the average Android consumer in the U.S. spends 56 minutes per day actively interacting with web and apps on their phone.