Mobile Web: latest facts and stats forecast a rosy outlook
Submitted by Editors Desk on 28 August, 2009 - 07:18.
UPDATE: 22 April, 2010
All the latest mobile stats can be found in this special section:
The essential compendium of need-to-know statistics. Beware of media hype and mobile myth – put your mobile strategy on a sound footing with the latest research (as of April 2010) from credible independent experts. Global mobile subscribers, handset sales, mobile Web usage, mobile ad spend, it is all here.
Posted: 28 August, 2009
Reasons to be cheerful:
Of late, we have been spoilt with lots of useful statistics, research and market projections, so much so that we’ve had to break them into manageable chunks. Chapter one paints a rosy outlook for mobile Web marketers, where all around is doom and gloom.
Those statistics in a nutshell:
1) Mobile subscribers are growing rapidly. There will be 5.8 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by 2013 (Portio Research). No other media channel offers anything like this reach.
2) Handset figures show strong growth in smartphone sales (Gartner), which will be 29 percent of all cell phones by 2014 (Ovum). This means a richer mobile Web experience for mobile users.
3) More and more phones now support 3G and even faster networks based on High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) (IE Market Research). That means faster downloads.
4) Meanwhile 60 percent of the world’s population is now covered by a next-generation High Speed Packet Access mobile network (3G Americas). That means better access to high-speed downloads.
5) Mobile data is expected to balloon: a) revenue-wise, analysts expect data to be bigger than voice by 2011 (Pyramid Research); b) volume-wise, as mobile Internet users will be sending and receiving more data in one month than in the whole of 2008 (ABI Research).
6) No matter how bad the world recession becomes, mobile services revenue e.g. those useful value-added services offered to customers by operators, will continue to increase (ABI Research).
7) As the mobile Web matures, so brand expenditure on mobile advertising is predicted to be bigger than spending on SMS marketing in 2009, then will quadruple by 2014 (Juniper Research).
Which all ties in quite nicely with mobiThinking’s recent blog: Why recession is a great time to invest in mobile.
Those statistics in more detail:
1) Mobile subscribers will continue to grow rapidly, according to Portio Research:
* In 2009 there will be 4.3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, growing to 5.8 billion in 2013.
* Growth will be fueled by Asia-Pacific particularly, which by 2013 will account for 43.9 percent of subscribers, followed by Europe (25.0 percent), Africa and Middle East (12.2 percent), Latin America (11.2 percent) and North America (7.6 percent).
* Over the next five years and beyond, Asia will account for half the world’s mobile subscribers and half the handset sales.
This data comes from the Portio Research Mobile Factbook 2009, which is available on free download. It is stacked full of mobile stats on mobile operators and the mobile market through to mobile entertainment compiled from Portio’s recent research reports.
2a) Smartphone sales grew 27 percent in the second quarter of 2009, while total handset sales fell 6 percent, according to Gartner.
* Touchscreens and QWERTY keyboards are encouraging users to upgrade and helped smartphones increase their share of sales from 10.6 percent to 14.3 percent.
* The top five mobile phone vendors in Q2 2009: Nokia (36.8 percent); Samsung (19.3 percent); LG (10.7 percent); Motorola (5.6 percent); Sony Ericsson (4.7 percent); others (23 percent). Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson lost share, while Samsung, LG and other manufacturers increased share compared to the previous year.
* The top five smartphone vendors in Q2 2009: Nokia (45 percent); Research in Motion (18.7 percent); Apple (13.3 percent); HTC (6.0 percent); Fujitsu (3.0 percent); others (13.9 percent). RIM, Apple, HTC and Fujitsu all increased market share, while Nokia and other vendors reduced.
Read more in this press release.
2b) Smartphone shipments will reach 406.7 million by 2014, will account for 29 percent of the total global handset market, according to Ovum:
* In 2014 the Symbian operating system will power 43 percent of smartphones (down from 58 percent in 2008);
* Ovum expects all tier-one handset manufacturers except Nokia to adopt the open-source Android operating system (from Google);
* Android-powered handsets shipments to reach 18 percent of the smartphone market, overtaking Windows Mobile.
* Asia-Pacific’s smartphone shipments will account for 30 percent of world shipments in 2009.
Read more in this article.
3) Manufacturers launched 253 handsets in 2Q 2009 (down 8.3 percent on the previous year), according to IE Market Research Corporation (Canada). Other useful stats from the Global Mobile Handset Specifications Database include:
* The average handset is becoming thinner but heavier (average 111 grams). Screen sizes continue to rise (now above 2.5 inch), as does battery life (talk time above five hours; standby time more than fourteen days).
* 60 percent of handsets were 3G devices, 33 percent supporting HSDPA and 8 percent supporting HSUPA, which are both next-generation High Speed Packet Access technologies.
* Clamshell models are giving way to sliding handsets.
4) 6 out of 10 people worldwide now have access to a High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network – that’s the GSM-based mobile broadband technology that’s even faster than 3G. As of September 2009, HSPA (which includes HSDPA, HSUPA and HSPA+) will reach 4 billion mobile connections, according to 3G Americas, and it has reached this level in record-breaking time.
Read more in this press release and this guide to HSPA (quite techie).
5a) Revenue from mobile data will overtake fixed voice in the US in 2011, according to Pyramid Research.
Mobile data will be worth US$94 billion in 2014, from US$36 billion in 2008.
Read more in this press release, with link to download a free excerpt.
All analysts agree that data will overtake voice at some point, but disagree on how fast this will occur, for example Portio Research see voice as 67 percent of mobile operator revenue in 2013.
5b) By 2014, global mobile Internet users will have sent and received 1.6 Exabytes of mobile data each month: that’s more than the 1.3 Exabytes transferred during the whole of 2008, according to ABI Research.
* The bulk of that will be down to mobile-enabled laptops rather than smartphones.
* Mobile Web access will account for 74 percent, with 26 percent down to audio and video streaming.
Read more in this press release.
6) Worldwide mobile services revenue will grow by at least 1.2 percent annually through to 2014, according to ABI Research:
* Global recession will affect mobile services, hitting North America hardest, but even in the worst scenario revenues will grow by 1.2 percent annually through 2014;
* Recession will encourage mobile operators to compete on price of mobile data services;
* Operators need to encourage customers to maintain ‘nice-to-have’ data services or addition of more utilitarian ones;
* Content downloads will be the first casualties of an extended recession, affecting APAC operators heaviest.
Read more in this press Release.
7) Sharp increase in spending on mobile Internet advertising, predicted by Juniper Research:
* Advertising expenditure on mobile Internet will overtake spending on SMS marketing in 2009;
* Global spending on mobile Internet advertising will be US$500 million in 2009; total value of marketing spend on mobile is US$1.4bn;
* Mobile ads revenue will be US$2bn by 2014; total value of marketing spend on mobile is US $6bn in 2014;
* Where fixed Internet access is limited, mobile is the dominant means of accessing the Internet: in India, mobile accounted for nearly 90 percent of all Internet users in 2008;
* Visitor numbers to popular mobile Internet sites makes strong case for advertising and sponsorship options;
* Brands can build up much more detailed profiles of user responses and plan follow up campaigns accordingly, compared to online;
* Despite the increasing popularity of mobile advertising, most campaigns are ad hoc and there are very few converged campaigns.
Read more in this press release.
Do you think these statistics tell a convincing story for mobile Web marketing? Comment below or email editor (at) mobiThinking.com.
** mobiThinking would like to thank Peggy Anne Salz of MSearchGroove for including this blog in the latest Carnival of the Mobilists. For the uninitiated, the Carnival of the Mobilists is a weekly roundup of the very best in mobile and wireless blogs. Each week the Carnival is written by a different writer, so is constantly moving from one mobile blog to another. **
Don’t miss:
Japan, Canada, USA, Germany, UK, India, Australia, Spain, South Africa, Brazil
Rating for this article:
Always interested in statistics like these, especially without paying someone $500 for a report.
I have now heard from various sources that mobile web usage will increase dramatically over the next several years. Not really a big surprise, is it? Young people and business executives alike are pushing the envelope. I have to think that not only will the usage increase sharply, but so will new product development. You have to sit back and watch this happen and just be in awe. The new technology will just keep coming in waves as more and more products hit the market. There is a demand for this stuff so it will come in bunches. Keep your eyes open and find yourself a good website to review products. casino
Mobile subscribers and notebook users are increasing every hour. People are loving to use these devices when they are at cafe or have free time. My website's visitor through these devices are also increased from 1% to 8% already. It didn't just happened that Facebook is now world's second visited website. It happened because it's easy to get friends activity through Facebook application rather than calling them and know their status :D
Thanks a bunch for this great stat without any upfront payment.
this is a great amount of efforts done on the accurate statistical data collection and projection. as a member of the marketing team of my mobile website, it would surely help me give a better understanding and perspective on future projection of the mobile phone usage and perspective customers for newly releasing mobile phones
The most common operating systems in use are Windows Mobile, the iPhone platform, Palm OS, Mobile Linux, Symbian OS, the BlackBerry platform, and Android There are other proprietary systems specific to particular phones, such as those found on some Verizon handsets and specific brands of phones. You can estimate, based on the type of audience your site targets, which OSs your users are most likely to be using...
Great post. Thanks for this, it will be helpful for my small project on blackjack, that i might be submitting in next week.
this is a great amount of efforts done on the accurate statistical data collection and projection. as a member of the marketing team of my mobile website, it would surely help me give a better understanding and perspective on future projection of the mobile phone usage and perspective customers for newly releasing mobile phones
online tv
Interesting that this clearly shows that Apple is NOT number one, but yet people keep developing software for the iPhone and the iPhone only. Seems to me these marketing and software companies may have missed the boat on the "true" initial need.... Mobile phone apps. The iPhone only brought this need to light, now lets meet the need and develop them for the major players: not just iPhone, but ALSO Blackberry and Android.
Thanks for this statistics, as Samuel said, I am not surprised, in the next fex years, the mobile usage will increase dramatically and the applications along with them, especially internet access.
Mobile subscribers and notebook users are increasing every hour. People are loving to use these devices when they are at cafe or have free time. My website's visitor through these devices are also increased from 1% to 8% already. It didn't just happened that Facebook is now world's second visited website. It happened because it's easy to get friends activity through Facebook application rather than calling them and know their status :D
Thanks a bunch for this great stat without any upfront payment..
Cell phone users are growing very fast so we can predict about the cell phone market.Thanks for the detailed analysis & report. But please add an good separate report on 3G.
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