Some very interesting statistical projections about mobile from Tomi Ahonen (@tomiahonen).
Communities Dominate Brands: Some Milestones We Will See This Year in Mobile Statistics
Highlights that jumped off the page:
On cameraphones:
. . . the world will have more than 3.5 Billion cameraphones in use at the end of this year – for a planet of 7 Billion people. Yes, literally there will be a camera (and phone and in most cases videocamera too) for half of the population. Like I’ve been saying for a while now, for 9 out of 10 people worldwide, who have ever taken a picture, the only type of camera they have ever used, is a cameraphone. The Nikon or Canon that you may carry in your travel gear, is for the wealthy portion of the planet. Most cannot afford a stand-alone camera, and will use the cameraphone instead.
On mobile web browsers:
Last year 71% of all phones in use had a ‘real’ web browser, that was HTML compatible (the rest of the basic browsers were WAP compatible). What is 71% of 4.6 Billion phones? 3.3 Billion. Yes, the number of phones with a ‘real browser’ is almost 3 times as big, as the total connected number of all personal computers of any kind, that are connected to the web, including desktops, laptops, netbooks and iPads.. Three times as big. So is your website already mobile enabled?
On second phones:
A mind-numbing stat is the second phone stat. At the end of this year, globally 18% of all people who have a mobile phone account, walk around not just with two or more accounts, but carrying 2 mobile phones in their pockets! Thats 700 million ‘second phones’ in use! It is a massive number. Note that is is more than all portable personal computers of any kind (laptops, netbooks, tablets). Its almost as big as the total number of smartphones (and many smartphone owners walk around with 2 smartphones, ie one Blackberry the other an iPhone etc).
On single SIMs:
As the planet proceeds to more accounts per person, especially with the proliferation of prepaid accounts, we will end the year, where less than four out of ten mobile phone customers, in fact 39%, will be of the kind who can survive with only one account (and only one phone). Yes by the end of the year, 61% of us will find it useful to own more than one mobile phone subscription.
These are Tomi’s projections, sure, but he’s been in mobile for a long time and isn’t just throwing darts. So, it’s safe to assume his forecasts are in the right neighborhood.
Crazy stuff.
