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UPDATE August 13, 2010: Adds Facebook mobile stats and Amazon m-commerce income.

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UPDATE June 22, 2010: New research on mobile messaging and how people use their cell phones.

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UPDATE May 17, 2010: New section on mobile financial services and mobile payments.

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The mobiThinking compendium of mobile statistics and research

The stats, all the stats and nothing but the stats…
In the past two years, we have gone from a smattering of mobile statistics to an abundance of useful information. But there's still a long way to go, there are still huge gaps in our knowledge, some countries enjoy a proliferation of data sources, while others have little or none; and the quality of statistics varies incredibly. As telecoms regulators and industry associations start to collect and share meaningful data, things will only get better.

An unfortunate side effect of the media’s recent surge of enthusiasm for mobile in the past year is a tendency to highlight data of dubious quality (often when better is available), and/or widespread misunderstanding, misreporting and failure to qualify figures they have cherry-picked. This isn't just misleading and confusing, it's damaging. If brands are persuaded by hype to divert funds into niche, ill-thought-through mobile projects and then get burnt, the whole mobile business suffers.

This stats compendium – to which we plan regular updates and additions - will hopefully go some way to putting right some of the sins of the last year. But please remember that even the best quality independent statistics are speculative to some degree – stats are not facts.

Thanks to all the analysts, associations and regulators that continue to send us their research.

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“There are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.” – Facebook official statistics (August, 2010).

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Those statistics in a nutshell:

PART A: Mobile subscribers; handset data; mobile Web usage; mobile ad spend and more

1) Mobile subscribers will surpass 5 billion in 2010 (that's over 70 percent of the world population) and growing rapidly, led by China and India.
* What other medium offers that reach?
2) Half a billion people accessed mobile Internet worldwide in 2009. Usage will double within five years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web.
* But with 233 million mobile Web users in China alone, is this estimate conservative?
3) By 2011, over 85 percent of new handsets will be able to access the mobile Web.
* Please note that this does not mean smartphones – you do not need a smartphone to access the mobile Web (but it does make for a richer experience).
4) The number of 3G handsets is growing fast. 3G means faster access the mobile Web (assuming a 3G network is available).
* While very high 3G handset penetration helps to keep Japan at the pinnacle of mobile Web, very low 3G penetration in China hasn't stopped rapid growth.
5) Mobile devices sales fell slightly in 2009, while smartphone sales showed strong growth albeit from a small base.
* Beware: there is a lot of misinformation about the market share of smartphones and some handsets in particular. This doesn't matter if your mobile strategy targets all phone users equally, but if you are prioritizing one handset, you must know the facts.
6) SMS is still king of mobile messaging with five trillion messages sent in 2009. Despite the popularity of mobile email, IM and MMS, SMS is predicted to exceed 10 trillion in 2013.
7) Estimates for expenditure on mobile advertising and marketing worldwide ranged from US$1.4 billion to $7.5 billion in 2009, all analysts forecast rapid growth. But with annual mobile advertising expenditure of US$1.14 billion in Japan alone, are these estimates conservative or is Japan still light years ahead of the rest of the world?
8) What do consumers use their mobiles for? According to this US data: 1. calls; 2. SMS; 3. mobile Web; 4. apps; 5. games; 6. social networking; 7. music.
How will consumers use their mobiles in the future? The key drivers for mobile usage are expected to be (in order of importance) money transfer; location-based services; mobile search; mobile browsing; mobile health monitoring; mobile payment; near-field-communication services; mobile advertising; instant messaging; and mobile music.
9) The top five mobile network operators worldwide that derive more of their revenue from data than other operators are all Asian: Smart Philippines, Globe Philippines, SoftBank Japan, NTT DOCOMO Japan, KDDI Japan. Also four of the top five MNOs for monthly churn (loyalty) are also Asian. Also includes top five for subscribers, revenues, monthly average revenue per user (ARPU).

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“In the last twelve months, customers around the world have ordered more than US $1 billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device," – Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com (July 2010).

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Part B: Mobile financial services (MFS) and mobile payment

1) There will be around 1 billion people accessing financial services by mobile by 2015. The MFS market will be dominated Asia, driven by mobile operator-led initiatives in developing nations to bank the unbanked.
* Remittance/transfers by mobile is growing three times faster than m-banking.
* Will MFS be mobile's killer application?
2) Up to 50 percent of the world's mobile subscribers could be making payments by mobile (m-payments) in 2014.
* M-commerce is predicted to reach US$119 billion in 2015, Japan remains king.
* M-ticketing will be used by more than 1 in 10 mobile subscribers in 2014, particularly in the transport sector.

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Those statistics in more detail:

1) Mobile subscribers will surpass 5 billion in 2010 (that's over 70 percent of the world population).
The International Telecommunication Union (February 2010) reports that in 2009 there were 4.6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions globally. The ITU expects this to reach 5 billion in 2010 (the world population in April 2010 was 6.8 billion.
* The ITU says growth is being driven by advanced services and handsets in developed countries and increased take-up of mobile health services and mobile banking in the developing world.
* See mobile financial services section below for all the stats on m-banking.

1b) The world's most populous nations have the most mobile subscriptions (unsurprisingly), China and India lead growth.
* China 747.4 million subscribers in 2009, growing to 1,311.7 million in 2014 eMarketer (February 2010)
* India 525.2 million subscribers in 2009, growing to 853.0 million in 2014 eMarketer (February 2010)
* USA 285.6 million subscribers in 2009 CTIA (December 2009)

2) The number of people accessing the mobile Internet is growing fast and is expected to overtake the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web within five years.
The ITU (February 2010) expects mobile Web access – via laptops and smart mobile devices – to overtake desktop Web within the next five years.
Strategy Analytics (March 2010) estimates that at the end of 2009 almost 530 million users browsed the mobile Web on their handset. This is forecast to rise to over 1 billion by 2015.
IDC (December 2009) estimates there were more than 450 million mobile Internet users worldwide in 2009; this will pass the 1 billion mark by 2013.

2b) There are more mobile Internet users in China than any other country.
The China Internet Network Information Center reports (March 2010): "China's mobile phone users have showed rapid growth. By end of December 2009, the number of mobile Internet users reached 233 million, accounted for 60.8 percent of the total number of Internet users."
eMarketer predicts there will be more mobile Internet users in China at the end of 2010 than there are people in the US (the third most populous nation after China and India).

3) By 2011, over 85 percent of new handsets will be able to access the mobile Web.
Gartner (March 2010) predicts that by 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser. (In previous estimates Gartner said about 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009 were able to browse the mobile Web).
* In mature markets, such as Western Europe and Japan, approximately 60 percent of handsets shipped will be smartphones with sophisticated browsing capabilities.
* In mature markets, the mobile Web, along with associated Web adaptation tools, will be a leading technology for business to consumer (B2C) mobile applications through 2012, and should be part of every organization's B2C technology portfolio.

mobiThinking reality check on smartphones: there is a myth that you need a smartphone to access the mobile Web, this is a complete fallacy. Also the disproportionate amount of publicity smartphones receive in the press encourages marketers to believe most customers will have one, but in reality smartphones were only 15 percent of mobile device sales in 2009. See the numbers for market share below.

4) Top regions and countries for penetration of 3G handsets.
Informa and Ovum via Morgan Stanley:

Top regions for penetration of 3G handsets, according to Ovum				Top 10 countries for penetration of 3G handsets, according to Informa
Region	2009	2014		Country	%
Western Europe	39%	92%		Japan	87%
North America	38%	74%		South Korea	71%
Eastern Europe	9%	40%		Australia	52%
AsiaPac(without Japan)	7%	37%		Singapore	41%
Japan	91%	100%		Israel	39%
Middle East & Africa	7%	35%		Spain	38%
South & Central America	4%	17%		USA	37%
				Sweden	37%
				Austria	37%
				Portugal	33%
				Italy	33%
Global	15%	43%		Global	11%
Source: Morgan Stanley (December 2009)				Morgan Stanley	via: mobiThinking

mobiThinking note on 3G: Morgan Stanley states that "3G is key to success of mobile Internet"; however while Japan (king of the mobile Web) appears to be testimony to this conclusion, China has the highest mobile Internet usage in the world despite low 3G handset penetration.

5) Total shipments of mobile devices fell slightly in 2009 (compared to 2008)
Gartner: In 2009 1,211.2 million mobile handsets were sold, down 0.9 percent on the previous year.
IDC: In 2009 1,127.8 million units mobile handsets were sold, down 5.2 percent on the previous year.

Top five mobile phone manufacturers in 2009, according to IDC				Top five mobile phone manufacturers in 2009, according to Gartner
Rank	Vendor	Market share		Rank	Vendor	Market share
1	Nokia	38.3%		1	Nokia	36.4%
2	Samsung	20.1%		2	Samsung	19.5%
3	LG	10.5%		3	LG	10.1%
4	Sony Ericsson	5.1%		4	Motorola	4.8 %
5	Motorola	4.9%		5	Sony Ericsson	4.5%
	Others	21.2%			Others	24.7%
Source: IDC (January 2010)				Gartner (February 2010)		via: mobiThinking

5b) Smartphone sales showed strong growth worldwide
Gartner: Total shipments in 2009 were 172.4 million units up 23.8 percent from 2008. This makes smartphones 14.2 percent of all handsets shipped.
IDC: Total shipments in 2009 were 174.2 million units up 15.1 percent from 2008. This makes smartphones 15.5 percent of all handsets shipped.

Top five smartphone manufacturers in 2009 according to IDC				Top five smartphone operating systems in 2009 according to Gartner
Rank	Vendor	Market share		Rank	Vendor	Market share
1	Nokia	38.9%		1	Symbian (mostly Nokia)	46.9%
2	Research In Motion	19.8%		2	Research In Motion	19.9%
3	Apple	14.4%		3	iPhone OS	14.4%
4	HTC	4.6%		4	Microsoft Windows Mobile	8.7%
5	Samsung	3.3%		5	Linux	4.7%
	Others	19.0%			Others	19.0%
Source: IDC (January 2010)				Gartner (February 2010)		via: mobiThinking

mobiThinking reality check on Apple: Apple receives far more publicity than any other mobile-phone manufacturer, but on the world stage it is still a pretty small player. Before media hype lulls you into focusing your marketing/development budget on the Apple platform exclusively, consider this:
Apple sold 25.1 million phones in 2009 – while this sounds impressive it is only 2.2 percent of new handsets. Nokia sold nearly three times as many smartphones (67.7 million) as Apple and 17 times as many handsets in total (431.8 million).

6) SMS is still king of mobile messaging, according to Portio Research (February 2010)
* SMS is used by four billion consumers worldwide.
* In 2009 worldwide SMS traffic topped five trillion messages, and that figure is set to exceed 10 trillion in 2013.
* MMS, mobile email and mobile IM are all growing strongly. The driver for MMS is the number of camera phones, for mobile email is the business market and while IM is popular with the youth market.
* The global mobile messaging business is worth over US$150 billion, and will hit US$233 billion by 2014.
* See the The insiders' guide to mobile marketing using SMS

7) Expenditure on mobile advertising and marketing worldwide:
Strategy Analytics (March 2010) estimates that global expenditure on mobile advertising (defined as placing an advert within a variety of mobile media formats including mobile Internet, games and applications, mobile video, mobile TV, streaming music, text and media alerts) at US$3.6 billion in 2009, growing to US$38 billion in 2015.
ABI Research (May 2009) estimates that global expenditure on mobile marketing and advertising in 2009 was $7.5 billion, with forecast years for $11.5 billion in 2010, $16.3 billion in 2011 and $21.2 billion in 2012.
Juniper Research (August 2009) predicts that total advertising expenditure on mobile was expected to rise from just over US$1.4bn in 2009 to US$6 billion n in 2014. Of this, ad spend on mobile Internet was estimated to be US$500 million in 2009. The report also pointed out that:
* 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 compared to online and plan follow-up campaigns accordingly.

7b) Japan rules the roost when it comes to mobile advertising, based on its highly developed mobile Web.
Mobile marketing and advertising expenditures in Japan in 2009 was 103.1 billion Yen, that's US$1.14 billion (according to Dentsu,). Year-on-year growth was 12.9 percent. There are lots more juicy stats in this Guide to mobile in Japan

8) What do consumers use their mobiles for?. According to ComScore's (June 2010) on-going study of the behaviour of US mobile users:

How US mobile subscribers use their cell phones
Activity	Jan 2010	Apr 2010	Increase
Sent text message to another phone	63.5%	64.6%	1.1
Used browser	28.6%	31.1%	2.5
Used downloaded apps	26.7%	29.8%	3.1
Played games	21.7%	22.4%	0.7
social networking	17.1%	19.9%	2.8
Listened to music	12.8%	13.8%	1.0
Numbers from: ComScore, June 2010		Via: mobiThinking

8b) The top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012, as predicted by Gartner (November 2009).
Order was determined by impact on consumers and industry players, considering revenue, loyalty, business model, consumer value and estimated market penetration):
* No. 1: Money transfer – most services offering person-to-person transfers, using Short Message Service (SMS), signed up several million users within their first year. (See mobile financial services section below for all the stats on money transers).
* No. 2: Location-based services – Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 million in 2009 to more than 526 million in 2012.
* No. 3: Mobile search – the user experience of mobile search needs to improve to drive customer loyalty and drive sales and marketing opportunities.
* No. 4: Mobile browsing – 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009 can browse the mobile Web, rising to approximately 80 percent in 2013. Therefore, the mobile Web will be a key part of most corporate B2C mobile strategies.
* No. 5: Mobile health monitoring – i.e. using IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely. So far it has been limited to pilot projects.
* No. 6: Mobile payment – paying for goods and services over the mobile Web. (For all the statistics, see m-payments section below).
* No. 7: Near-field-communication services – NFC allows contactless data transfer between devices and terminals typically to pay for transport or to cash in a mobile coupon.
* No. 8: Mobile advertising – Gartner expects spending on mobile advertising to reach US$7.5 billion in 2012 from US$530.2 million in 2008.
* No. 9: Mobile instant messaging – Gartner thinks users really desire Mobile IM, especially in developing markets. This presents an opportunity for mobile advertising and social networking.
* No. 10: Mobile music – apart from ring tones and ring-back tones, which have turned into a multibillion-dollar service, mobile music has so far has been disappointing.

8) The most popular activities of mobile Internet users, according to IDC (December 2009) are:
* Using search engines, reading news and sports information, downloading music and videos, and sending/receiving email and instant messages. Over the next four years, IDC predicts the fastest growing activities will be purchasing, social networking and blogging.
* Accessing online business applications and corporate email systems will also grow rapidly.

9) The top five mobile network operators worldwide: by number of subscribers, revenues, monthly average revenue per user (ARPU), monthly churn (i.e. loyalist customer base) and data as a percentage of total revenues, according to Portio Research:

Top five operators by different KPIs – worldwide
Rank	Subscribers	Total revenues	Monthly ARPU	Monthly churn	Proportion of revenues derived from data
1	China Mobile	China Mobile	3 UK	NTT DOCOMO Japan	Smart Philippines
2	China Unicom	AT&T US	Bouygues France	KDDI Japan	Globe Philippines
3	Bharti Airtel India	Verizon US	Vodafone Ireland	SingTel Singapore	SoftBank Japan
4	AT&T US	NTT DOCOMO Japan	O2 Ireland	Chunghwa Taiwan	NTT DOCOMO Japan
5	Verizon US	Sprint US	Orange Switzerland	T-Mobile Germany	KDDI Japan
Source: Portio Research (June 2009)					via: mobiThinking

mobiThinking note on the Top fives: the most interesting thing is the predominance of Asian mobile operators coming top in both the customer loyalty and data revenues sections. Perhaps this represents different and longer-term priorities than the European networks that come top in average revenue per user. (Note: the analysis in this report is based on 2008 revenues).

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Part B: Mobile financial services, including m-banking and money transfers; and mobile payment, including m-commerce and contactless payments

"Mobile handsets are in an excellent position to become the primary digital channel for providers of banking and related financial services in emerging markets” – Berg Insight.

1. Mobile financial services (MFS) (m-banking, m-wallets, remittance/transfers etc) are growing fast:
* Berg Insight (April 2010) estimates that users of m-banking and related services (including money transfers) doubled between 2008 and 2009 to 55 million and will double again in 2010. In 2015 there will be 894 million users globally. Growth is being driven by efforts by operators and banks in developing countries (particularly in Asia) to bank the unbanked.
* Global Industry Analysts (GIA) (February 2010) predicts the global customer base for m-banking will reach 1.1 billion by the year 2015.
* ABI Research (January 2009) forecasts that in 2013, there will be nearly half a billion customers of MFS, including m-banking, mobile domestic person-to-person payments (i.e. money transfers) and international person-to-person payments.

1b) Asia will be the key market for MFS, driven by initiatives to bank the unbanked and money transfers:
* Berg Insight: More than half of global MFS customers will be in Asia Pacific – Middle East and Africa is also expected to be important market – as mobile operators drive initiatives to bank the unbanked.
* GIA: Asia-Pacific will emerge as the predominant MFS market in terms of customer base. In Middle East and Africa, the need to provide financial services to remote areas will be central to the growth of m-banking.
* For more insight into MFS in developing nations, see: The insider's guide to banking the unbanked.

1c) In developed nations m-banking will be driven by banks:
* GIA: In North America and Europe, m-banking is extension of online banking, as banks respond to growth of mobile Web. But in Europe, m-banking is in early stages, driven by convenience and value-add rather than revenue generation.
* Berg Insight: Evolving from traditional/online banking; m-banking will attract 115 million users in Europe and 86 million users in North America, by 2015.
* ABI: Banking institutions will be the major promoters of MFS, as it helps to increase customer ‘stickiness,’ help banks cut costs and automate, and most importantly, to reach the unbanked.
* ABI: In the US, Bank of America is a leader of m-banking. Launched in May 2007 it now has 1.5 million subscribers.

1d) Remittance/transfers by mobile is growing much faster than m-banking (driven by developing nations)
* ABI Research (July 2009) predicts that 170 million mobile subscribers worldwide will make domestic person-to-person payments (i.e. transfers) in 2011 – that's three times as many as those that will conduct traditional banking functions by mobile. This is driven by the enthusiasm for such services in developing world often from previously ‘unbanked’ people.
* Berg Insight predicts international money transfers will increasingly be done by mobile. By 2015 3–15 percent of transfers handled by agent networks today will be carried out by mobile handset (worth US$1.2–6.2 billion in revenues to the mobile industry).

2)Worldwide mobile payments (m-payments) are growing strongly, but will still only be worth 5 percent of ecommerce retail sales in 2014:
* N.B. definitions of m-payments may vary.
* Portio Research (March 2010) estimates there were 81.3 million people worldwide using their mobile device to make payments (including in-app payments, mobile ticketing and mobile coupons) in 2009. By the end of 2014, this is forecasted to rise to nearly 490 million (8 percent of mobile subscribers).
The volume of m-payments i.e. face value of purchases and transactions was US$68.7 billion in 2009, rising to US$633.4 billion by end-2014.
* Juniper Research (April 2010) predicts that almost half of global mobile subscribers – both developed and developing nations - will pay by mobile for physical and digital goods and services (such as ticketing) by 2014. For example, in 2014, more than 500 million people will make m-payments on the Indian Sub Continent.
The volume of m-payments (i.e. how much they spend) will be US$170 billion this year, growing to $630 billion by 2014. But this is only 5 percent of ecommerce retail sales.
* But IDC (May 2010) believes that in EMEA, m-payments will take off slower than m-banking, forecasting that less than 13 percent of mobile subscribers will be registered to use m-payments and volume of m-payments will be no more than $125 billion. Thus m-payments will take off slower than many industry observers hope, due to the complexity and set-up costs for retailers. However, strong growth in m-banking will lay the foundations for growth in mobile payments.

2b) Shopping on the mobile Web, i.e. m-commerce will reach US$119 billion in 2015 predicts ABI Research (February 2010), that’s about 8 percent of the total e-commerce market:
* Today, Japan is king of m-commerce, where mobile Web shopping exceeded US$10 billion in 2009, making the US$1.2 billion bought in the US by mobile look trifling.
For more insight on Japan, see this: guide to mobile in Japan
* M-commerce in Europe is expected to outpace the US by the end of 2010.
* Long-term growth in m-commerce will come from developing nations where mobile is virtually the only way to access the Internet.

2c) More than 1 in 10 mobile subscribers will use m-ticketing in 2014, estimates Jupiter Research (April 2010):
* Services are developing fastest in the transport sector, particularly rail and metro companies and airlines, but m-ticketing is also used in concerts and movies.
* Hotspots for transport m-ticketing include Japan, Scandinavia and Austria.
* Airlines increasingly offer not only mobile boarding passes, but ticket booking and payment as well.
* But lack of standards has led to multiple ticket scheme environments which could impede growth.

2d) M-coupons will dominate mobile retail marketing spend until 2013, according to Juniper Research (March 2010):
* Mobile retail will exceed US$12 billion by 2014 (mobile retail is defined as m-coupon redemption values, smart poster fees and advertising expenditure).
* The mobile retail sector would initially be dominated by coupons, but mobile advertising expenditure will exceed coupon redemption values by 2013

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Comment below or email editor (at) mobiThinking.com.

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Further reading:

• The insiders' guides to mobile Web marketing:
  Japan, Canada, USA, Germany, UK, India, Australia, Spain, South Africa, Brazil
• Why Asia will (continue to) dominate the mobile Web – from now on, it's not just about Japan
• Why Japan is the king of mobile: the stats and facts
• Why mobile is imperative for brands in Asia: interview with Marco Gavin, Procter & Gamble
• Mobile: it's about the consumer, stupid: interview with Barney Loehnis, OgilvyOne, Asia
• mobiThinking guide to mobile ad networks (2010)
• Conferences & awards for mobile marketers, with offers
• mobiThinking’s page of essential links