Countdown to Mobile Moment - When Will Mobile Phone Accounts Outnumber Humans? I say July 2013 (we are at 6.7B already)

So its that monster year not just in mobile and tech, but in human history. We will experience the Mobile Moment this year, 2013. The moment in time when human evolution reaches the point, where a single consumer gadget exceeds the total human population by users. So we are now counting down to yes, the moment when mobile phone accounts, or 'subscriptions' or some may say 'users' or 'mobile phones' will exceed the total human population alive. Not measured in household penetration rates, nor of adults, but measured in total humans alive.

Never in human history has any gadget or technology achieved 100% penetration levels. Not cars, not motorbikes and mopeds, not even bicycles. Not the Walkman, not the CD player, not the television, Playstation, VCR, DVD player nor even radio. Not the PC, not the internet. Not even such basic necessities we all expect, like running water or electricity. The wristwatch may have seemed ubiquitous, but it wan't. It never reached every wrist. The pen and paper technology, basic pencils, do not reach the total human population because still 800 million adults on the planet are illiterate and have no use for such a technology. But even illiterate humans, beyond the reach of electricity are using mobile phones today. (yes in many parts of Africa and Asia and Latin America, schools provide free recharging service for mobile phones, as an incentive to have the parents send the kids to schoo. and get their phones recharged, for those living in villages and farms that don't have electricity)

But mobile. Mobile reached 6.7 Billion active accounts/subscriptions last year by December 2012, and grew from a little over 6 Billion, adding over 650 million new accounts ie grew new paying users by 11% in just one year. (Isn't this an awesome industry, the fastest-growing Trillion-dollar industry in human history, and the epicenter of all digital convergence). And how, this year, we will definitely add at least another 600 million, probably even more than that. So this is the historic year, when we will have the 'Mobile Moment'. A gadget or technology will grow to become bigger than total human population. Mobile accounts already are bigger than the populations of Europe, Oceania, Latin America, the Middle East and even North America. Asia is almost at 100% and Africa will reach 100% penetration rate level well before this decade is done (they are already past 70% penetration rate). Leading countries are past 200% like the UAE and Hong Kong.

So now we are on the countdown to the Mobile Moment. When will it happen? My current projections say it will happen in July of 2013. The planet is at 7.07 Billion humans and we are at 6.71 Billion mobile subscriptions now in January 2013. We are growing new mobile accounts at a rate of about 54 million per month.

Now, remember, the total mobile subscription count is not the same as actual mobile phones in use (that is less, as some will have multiple accounts but use one phone, and do the SIM-card-switch between different carriers/operators to save in costs or optimize in telecoms traffic behavior). Also remember, because some of us have two phones, and others who have one phone have more than one account, and as some of the mobile accounts are actually machine-accounts (electric meters, watering irrigation systems, healthcare warning systems etc) the actual number of 'unique users' as human beings is well below that magical number. But these are the numbers at the end of 2012:

MOBILE SUBCRIBERS, PHONES, AND USERS AT END OF 2012
Planet . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Billion humans
Mobile accounts . . . 6.7 Billion total active subscriptions (94% of all humans)
Phones in use . . . .  5.2 Billion including those with 2 phones (73% of all humans)
Unique users . . . . . 4.3 Billion humans who have at least one phone and account (60% of all humans)
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

Lets see as the numbers start to come in. I expect some analysts to jump on the mobile moment number earlier, and also, that as we'll hit the 7.0 Billion active accounts number before technically passing human population count at almost 7.1 Billion, we may see the seven billion number celebrated around May or June.

But yes, this is the monster number coming this year. It will be widely reported and a lot of pundits will give their commentary on fhis pervasive technology. So a few quick thoughts - most of those phones in use are not smartphones (only 1.1 Billion were at the end of last year). The number 1 used service on those mobile devices is no longer voice calls, it is SMS text messaging. More than two out of three phones in use is a cameraphone so for most humans on the planet, the only camera they have ever used, was on a phone, not a stand-alone Canon or Nikon or Olympus haha..

As to services, more than a third of these mobile phone users access the internet on their phones at least part of the time and nearly a third access news on their phones. 60% of mobile phone owners have received advertising on their phones already so mobile is becoming the biggest advertising platform by reach, totally dwarfing television, print and the PC based legacy internet, and rivalled only by radio anymore. And yes, obviously, all data in this blog may be freely shared and re-used and translated and turned into infographics etc.. Please provide links back here if you do and also tell me via Twitter - I am @tomiahonen of course - and I'll tweet links to your articles that talk about these numbers.

I'll be giving you a lot more data on the mobile industry as we near the publication date for the brand new TomiAhonen Almanac 2013 edition, but if you wanted all the mobile data in an ebook/mbook that you can save on your tablet, laptop or smartphone - now's the time to order the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012. Anyone who buys the old edition now, gets the new edition also, for the same low price of ony 9.99 Euros. A great value on the 180 page statistical compendium of all major mobile industry stats. So check out the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012.

 

Comments

[Tester]

Then please post it in the discussion about Nokia, not in the one about Mobile accounts outnumbering humans.

Here it is indeed offtopic.

[John Waclawsky]

@tester. I don't consider it off topic. I am trying to envision WHAT the monster number and many of Tomi's very interesting statistics MEAN. ...IMHO, the numbers play into high level strategy (or the lack of it by Nokia).

Surely Nokia can't be that stupid, they didn't see an entire interconnected planet in THEIR future and they didn't notice the oppressive overhead in using anything microsoft. Once OS price/usability meets the needs of the masses the mobile market was primed to explode. You can even argue that microsoft was just inhibiting the mobile market with its insanity (doing the same windows thing over and over again and expecting different results).

Once Android stepped up, it was over for microsoft (never any doubt). Google was absolutely brilliant see this emerging world environment (not monkey boy) and the requirements and demand for "enabling" software, ...not "encumbered" software (not microsoft encumbered software with complexity issues, licensing issues, patent issues, cost issues, support issues, etc).

Consider connecting the planet with the crappy, over-priced, limited function, poorly designed and poorly architected microsoft products is just side splitting laughable. This was apparent years ago.

Any intelligent strategy would take the numbers from Tomi and combine them with technology changes (due to things like the explosive growth of texting, social networking, machine networking etc.)and position your products and services to be a central element of an emerging or new technology environment (or ...the future). It is the old Wayne Gretzky lesson. Skate to where the puck is gonna be!

Tomi's numbers tell you where the puck came from, and where the market is headed. And taken to it's logical conclusion the windows business model is uncompetitive in the future. All the microsoft astroturfing in the world will not change this fact or microsofts fate.

Seeing today that NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET is just the "symptom tip" of the statistics iceberg presented by Tomi. The microsoft titanic is right on top of it ...and they STILL don't see it. That's what the numbers mean.

Where do you think the already pathetic sales of windows phones and tablets will go when the recent massive microsoft advertizing dries up. Advertizing and sales do correlate! You can ask any advertiser. Even with the recent enormous amount of advertising NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET! Think about the effective ad subsidy to every windows phone and tablet sold to date just due to advertizing, when android just sells itself. Claims that a sustainable competitive 3rd ecosystem model will emerge using microsoft products by some of the microsoft astroturfers on this blog is just ...again side splitting laughable.

The arrogance and stupidity of microsoft and Nokia will be recorded in history as legendary.

[John Waclawsky]

BTW, I am not the only one to realize that if Nokia is to survive. Then Android is its future. The Nokia hardware is pretty good in my opinion, but as I have been saying NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE.

"Elop might be under internal pressure over his strategy. It is by considering internal Nokia politics that investors should look at his recent statement regarding potentially expanding into the Android market. Many consultants were advising Nokia to do this in 2011, which Elop decided against for now. To be honest if you read our advantages and disadvantages of the Nokia Lumia 920, most of the advantages are hardware related. In fact, if the Lumia 920 had an Android version, lets call it Dumia, it would be just as popular or even more so. The hardware features would remain as the differentiating factor. The optical image stabilization, wireless charging, the touch screen and IPS TFT display all are unrelated to the Windows Phone 8 eco-system. Therefore, you can see Elop's timely defence of Nokia share price as essentially defending his own position. A drop in share price over the next few months, will make replacing him more likely or at the very least it might have forced him to change strategy."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1106621-nokia-s-earnings-preview-intervention-could-illustrate-internal-pressure-on-elop

Now look at Tomi's numbers and explain how Nokia will survive using microsoft windows into a likely future where the OS is just an easily manipulated and extendable commodity and take it from there...

[RottenApple]

@John Waclawsky:

I'm sorry, but I have to agree with Tester on this being off-topic. If you can keep this to discussions about Nokia's problems it's ok, albeit still annoying. But here - in a discussion about mobile in general - they have no place and should be considered spamming or trolling.

Furthermore, you are quite the hypocrite. On the one hand you accuse Microsoft of astroturfing, but on the other hand resort to the same tactics to flood these discussions with your Microsoft-hate that goes well beyond the tolerance level of many readers here.

Too bad that the actual discussion about the 'mobile moment' is polluted by all this filth. It might have been an interesting topic.

[Lasko]

@Tester, RottenApple

+1

@John Waclawsky, Doke

I appreciate your effort, but it IS offtopic to this article. 'Nokia' or 'Windows Phone' is not even mentioned in this blog post. If you have anything to say post it to the corresponding article or wait for the next one to arrive.

Moderation requested.

[Pete Austin]

A lot of technologies outnumber people, if you count the individual items: knives, drinking vessels, food plates, shoes, etc..

[newbie reader]

// knives, drinking vessels, food plates, shoes

difference is, all of these could be reproduced by village, or small mediveal city, economy, with no more than some thousands of population. And many could be done by 1 person, or by his family/relatives.

While mobile is 'true advanced' /i.e. complicated, global/ tech.

It requires millions of people, rather advanced knowledge and huge chunk of 20th century level tech. Forget city-level, even most of smaller countries would probably be unable to reproduce it now on their own, even if they try.

[Jeroen]

Stephen Elop in the top 5 worst CEO of 2012 according to CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/id/47030593 (page 3 = about Elop)

[newbie reader]

Japan: Google's Nexus 7 had 44% of the market versus the iPad's 40%

Apple iPad lost the number one in Japan for the first time since 2010

http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/apple-inc-appl-ipad-loses-out-to-nexus-7-in-japan-37727/

[newbie reader]

USA 2013Q1 consumer demand for iPhone5 drops to pre-release level.

Buyers, who plan to buy iPhone over next 90 days:

sep'11, 65% /iP4S release peak/
dec'11, 54%
mar'12, 56%
jun'12, 50%
sep'12, 71% /iP5 release peak/
dec'12, 50%

plan to buy Samsung phone over next 90 days:
jun'12, 19%
sep'12, 13%
dec'12, 21%

So, if we trust these numbers,
iP5 is losing the battle to Sammy, returning to pre-release lows, on its own weight. SGS4 has not even announced yet.
Also note that higher percentage of iPhone buyers buys older model, compared to iP4S release.

And that funny guy, Baron95, talks about 'less peaky business' here :)

http://www.slashgear.com/changewave-iphone-demand-down-but-still-dominant-15265426/

[John Waclawsky]

I appreciate the advice @lasko, ...maybe I am working under a misconception that this is a blog about Nokia in general. And any comments regarding Nokia in the context of the latest post by Tomi were always appropriate. Is there some blog structure that I am missing?

Personally, I think Tomi's numbers are fascinating and I believe one of the reasons he posts them is to see if anyone has some interesting analysis beyond world pencil production and bibles ...specifically analysis to Nokia and the mobile ecosystem in general and what Nokia is going to do / should do in the upcoming reality. My take, which I posted is that Tomi's numbers point to an increasing broken microsoft business model. So why did nokia get in bed with microsoft? ...and how will they move forward when it becomes painfully obvious that microsoft is way to extinction (it sure seems obvious now when you consider microsoft phone and tablet sales).

@rottenapple If you think I am being too hard on microsoft please feel free to explain how wonderful they are for Nokia :-) All my posts are truthful and typically have links to the exact same conclusions that I am drawing. I am just reflecting some common viewpoints that are easily found by a little searching ...using google would be best ;-) Hopefully capitalizing NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET isn't bothering you too much. It is meant to annoy the trolls. But, please feel free to defend microsoft if you have some corrections.

I tried to provide some information that is at times hard to fit into the topic for example @newbie reader is doing a good job correcting Baron95 but if you really want to know what was behind Nokia recent stock increase I previously posted some analysis that provides some interesting background and perspective about Nokia recent stock movement at

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1106621-nokia-s-earnings-preview-intervention-could-illustrate-internal-pressure-on-elop

of course blog readers have to read it to get a bigger and i believe a fascinating picture of what/who is currently manipulating Nokia's stock price. But these kinds of "current events" posts often span multiple blog topics. My two cents... and I am sorry if I annoyed anyone but the microsoft astroturfers and trolls. :-)

[Winter]

@John Waclawsky
"Hopefully capitalizing NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET isn't bothering you too much. It is meant to annoy the trolls."

Actually, your capitalized soundbite has the effect to "cure" Google searches from the poisoning of the trolls. One primary aim of all the troll comments is to ensure that any critical comments are drowned in "positive" remarks in search results. Your repeated soundbite works as an anti-dote.
;-)

[newbie reader]

Consumer Reports:

iP5 is ranked 3rd for AT&T and Sprint, below SGS3, and is not even in Top 3 for Verizon.

AT&T
1. LG Optimus
2. SGS3
3. iP5

Sprint
1. LG Optimus
2. SGS3
3. iP5

Verizon
1. SGS3
2. HTC One S
3. Note2

T-Mobile
1. Moto Razr Maxx
2. Moto Razr
3. SGS3

/ And my pick would be: Verizon HTC DNA /

http://www.businessinsider.com/consumer-reports-iphone-5-2013-1

[John Waclawsky]

@winter. I agree. :-) Also, you can see my point in the drum beat of the press almost daily that NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE OR TABLET. I can point out as a current example:

http://www.slashgear.com/analyst-cuts-microsoft-surface-sales-projections-for-fiscal-q2-16265582/

I also think the trolls would like to distract us to run off on tangents too.

I really don't know how grown adults at Nokia who are supposed to be industry smart and understand long term strategy and short term tactics can make such blatant going out of business choices and stick with microsoft posion, especially in light of all the statistics and analysis by Tomi.

[John Waclawsky]

More press discovering that NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS TABLET :-)

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/microsoft-surface-low-sales-estimates/

http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-brief/68770-analyst-confirms-microsoft-surface-rt-sales-are-less-than-stellar

[newbie reader]

SGS4 Antutu test leak, says it has octa-core A15/A7 CPU

http://www.sammobile.com/2013/01/18/galaxy-s-iv-makes-an-appearance-in-antutu-benchmarks-confirms-exynos-5-octa-cpu/

[cycnus]

I'm posting this for the old MS astroturfer trools that say Apple user never change to android:

1. http://betanews.com/2013/01/18/i-cant-believe-i-switched-from-iphone-5-to-galaxy-note-ii/
this guy is an APPLE TROOL, he goes to betanews to DEFEND apple, but after he try SGN2, he's change.

2. Nexus 7 beat ipad:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57564407-37/google-nexus-7-tops-ipad-in-japan-is-this-a-trend/

Is this real or joke?:
http://i.imgur.com/47D7zGq.png

[Tester]

@cycnus:

About 1: Great find. And the article perfectly highlights what went wrong at Apple. Instead of revolutionizing smartphone use again all we got since the iPhone 4 was minor incremental improvements but no real innovation - not even an acknowledgement of how the market developed. When the first iPhone was released it had a huge screen compared to the competition, its user interface was by far the most advancved. But now? Android has caught up in all areas, and then produced something new like the Galaxy Note II. Samsung has managed to create something that's in its own league, far above the iPhone. The funniest thing here is that the entire industry and many 'experts' were mocking Samsung for creating such a monster. But it seems it was Samsung who did their research well. Let's wait what Apple releases this year - but it has to be a very significant improvement over the iPhone 5.

About 3: Haha. This is a terrific example of how to manipulate presentation of statistics. Have you noticed how the scales of the 2 things being compared don't even closely match? (IE use declined by half, murders by 1/7th) I guess you could create a similar picture with any other value that has been constantly declining for several years.

[Baron95]

@Newbie_Reader Why are you dragging me into a blog post that I'm not even commenting? You are one of the least bad posters here (at least you post interesting data and makes a reasonable argument), so I'll respond.

A - I said that ANDROID had peaked in the US. I never said that Samsung had peaked. Samsung as the Android winner will peak much, much later than Android as a whole.

B - The Samsung bounce up is due to the Note II launch (almost as big a Galaxy launch in the US). Nothing there.

C - The iPhone 5 launch in the US is nothing short of phenomenal. No matter how many thousands of words anyone writes. The data is clear. Highest iPhone peak ever 71% of all smartphones. Apple alone selling more smartphones that all other vendors (not just Android) combined in Q4. The drop 90 days out is simple to explain. Apple has become much, much, much better at meeting demand much more quickly after a launch. The iPhone 5 went quickly into near supply-demand balance in the US. So less people had to wait months to get one.

The challenges for Apple on the iPhone continue to be the same. Exclusion from key operators like China Mobile, DoCoMo, T-Mobile USA, and affordability.

As to Tomi's post, he confuses mobile activations with mobile subscription. In fact, there are less than 1.5B true mobile subscription (a monthly plan subscription for a device used by a human as a mobile device) on the planet.

In my house, the water meter and the electric meter both have a mobile link to report outages or consumption. Those are not visible, nor used by humans. If you were to count these things, then bar-codes, for example are in hundreds of billions of products per year. Even NFC tags are in tens ob billions of products already.

Other than that, with Tomi tolerating span from the likes of John Wacko (because it happens to advance his distorted view), and deleting those that disagree with his view, this blog is near unreadable. Even coming here for some laughs on the Linux guys predictions is no longer worth it.

[Baron95]

Incidentally, the massive losses of Android OEMs have begun. ZTE issued a warning of massive losses in Q4, which will turn the entire year 2012 negative, on what? That is right - mobile phone losses.

If Tomi wants to wright about bloodbath, the bloodbath will start in late 2013 and 2014. It is not a unit count bloodbath. It will be a profit bloodbath for OEMs and then for operators.

For OEMs, there will be a horde of Android plastic phone OEMs on a race to the bottom, a couple of niche players RIM/Windows trying to escape the race to the bottom (likely unsuccessfully) and Apple, alone, selling glass and aluminum, premium phone for the well to do, credit card iTunes crowd.

OEMs will suffer, with Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, etc offering the high value services, and they becoming a dumb pipe.

Tomi's favorite SMS revenues have peaked. In spain for instance, SMS revenues have dropped by 2/3, for 400M euros/quarter to 170M euros/quarter. In the US, SMS revenues are now impossible to measure, as unlimited SMS is a bundle on the total subscription price for smartphones and most other phones. So it is a table stakes give away.

Those are the trends that Tomi should be writing about. Instead, he will be reporting them in 2016 after it is all done, and OEMs and Operators become commodity device/access suppliers to Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

[winter]

@Baron95
So you see competition as the death of the free market.

Interesting viewpoint on economic development.

[Henrik]

@Baron95 All that with SMS revenew and Operators becoming commodity device/access suppliers.

In Denmark Europe we have had unlimited SMS/MMS for years.
We can no be bound in a phone contract for more then 6 month. And after that the carrier has to unlock the phone for free.
So for a long time it has been cheaper if you just got the phone off contract (some that do not do the math still buys with a contract) and most carriers has stopped offering "discount" on phones and just added. buy you phone and pay it over 6 to 24 month (They still have to unlock it after 6 month and you can stop you carrier contract after no longer then 6 month)

So I can get
3 hours talk time (it only count when I call out. I can receive unlimited time at no cost)
Unlimited SMS/MMS
3GB Data
And free talk to all others on the same carrier for 17.67 US$ and is only locked in the contract to the first of next month

Or
Free talk to all
Unlimited SMS/MMS
22GB Data
for 65.85 US$ and is only locked in the contract to the first of next month

And on both if I use more data then that. Then they will lower my data speed. But not charge extra.
And of cause there are also some plans in between.

The cool thing with not allowing the carrier to bind a person for longer then 6 month and that there phones has to be unlocked for free after the 6 month is that carriers and competing on there service and price. And the ones that only binds you to the first in next month is doing so. Because to want to show that they want to be the best, and want you to stay because you like there service.
And that phone makers has to compete on quality and price. And not just because they made a good deal with a carrier.

About you water and electric meter. Did you notice that the article says "...mobile phone ACCOUNTS outnumber humans...." and that Tomi in the article wrote "..... and as some of the mobile accounts are actually machine-accounts (electric meters, watering irrigation systems, healthcare warning systems etc) the actual number of 'unique users' as human beings is well below that magical number"

So he do know that. And just because you cant see your water meter's "phone" then it still needs an account to communicate.

About Android phones are plastic phones and are on a race to the bottom and glass and aluminium are the only premium phones.
Glass and aluminium are heavy compared to more modern materials. And the plastic that phones are made of today are not the plastic that you use for bottles or warping.
It's is made it take the beating a phones is getting when you use it. And be light weight.
It's like saying that plans not build of wood and cloth materials as in the good OLD days. And some cheap crap planes. And only the mostly handmade wood and cloth planes are quality.

Things evolves and if you do not evolve in same speed with the rest of them. You have to learn to catch up quick or get left behind and get extinct.
And that is where people are commenting on the iPhone. It's has not really evolved sins the iPhone 4. So catch up quick or get extinct.

[Baron95`]

@winter - No, but I see competition only on commodity prices, usually leading to low margin and possible losses.

There is no way that GM will ever have the same margins as BMW if they ONLY compete on commodity vs premium cars. So, it is more likely that GM will incur losses, than BMW.

It is more likely that Android OEMs will incur losses than Apple.

Simple.

Not a value (good vs bad) judgement. Just business.

[Baron95]

@Henrik - NO - you have NOT had unlimited SMS for 6 years. Travel around Europe and you will be hit with astronomical SMS fees (measured by price per byte).

With iMessage and the like you truly do have unlimited SMS anywhere, anytime, even when not on a cellular network, even to non phone devices like iPads and Macs.

It was this seachange that is forcing operators to change - and their days of extortion in advanced markets are numbered. They may get another 5-10 years tops.

The value WILL move from controlling operators (e.g. DoCoMo iMode, FOMA) to the Internet providers - Rovio, Facebook, Apple iTunes, google, etc.

[Baron95]

@Henrik - further commenting on your post - what you are also experiencing is the same old, over regulated European schemes, that restrict your choice. The same over regulation that gifted Nokia (and for a time Ericsson, Siemens, Alcatel, etc) with the rigid GSM standard and frequencies that made them lead the 2G transition, but is now making Europe a LTE laggard.

Why would your government prevent an operator and a consumer into having a 2year subsidize contract with a locked for life phone. It should be a free market. If some consumers want a subsidize phone and want a contract, so be it. I'll tell you EXACTLY a case in point. Many Americans (and quite a few Europeans) have their phone bills payed by their Employers, and could care less (as consumers) how much they pay. But they do want to get new devices (typically owned by them) every 18 months or so. So the subsidy model is perfect for those consumers. Why should government limit choices?

It is ridiculous - this obsession of many Europeans (and the regulators you elect) to one size fits all, will have very bad long term consequences.

Good luck to you.