Who are the 25 Biggest Companies by Mobile Revenues (Ahonen Index) updated for 2011 - China Mobile takes top honors

Many of the big companies in mobile are not true 'mobile' companies in that their history is from other business and often mobile is only a part of their total income, like with Google, Apple, Samsung etc. Even of companies that we think of as 'mobile' like Nokia, Vodafone, Verizon and Telefonica - they have sizeable fixed landline telecoms business. So in February of 2010 I went through the trouble of calculating out the pure mobile revenues of all the biggest players in mobile and published the world's first global listing of the 25 largest companies, when ranked only by their mobile revenues. I called it the Ahonen Index and as far as I've seen, nobody else has published a similar list - quite astonishing considering that mobile is the fastest-growing giant industry, ever.

I have wanted to update that list for 2011 and it got delayed and delayed. I ended up moving the calcuation point to the Q2 results (previous four quarters) so this is now roughly in harmony with the Fortune Global 500 issue which is published annually in the summer. And even then, as each company involved a lot of digging through their annual reports, it took me forever to get it done. But I have finally finished the analysis and am ready to publish the 2011 edition of the Ahonen Index: 25 Largest Companies Ranked by their Mobile Revenues. I have included their position also from the previous list and revenues last time so you see how the growth or decline has been. I am also including a Fortune Global 500 rank equivalent for those which would have qualified for the Fortune Global 500 based solely on their mobile business and what ranking they would have had.

AHONEN INDEX - TOP 25 COMPANIES RANKED BY THEIR MOBILE REVENUES

Rank (2010) . Company, Country  . . . . . . . . . Revenues (2010)  . . Main Focus  . . Fortune G500 Rank

1 (3) . . . . . . China Mobile, China . . . . . . . . . $ 77 B ( $ 65 B) . . . Operator . . . . .   87 **
2 (4) . . . . . . Verizon Wireless, USA *  . . . . . $ 72 B ( $ 62 B) . . . Operator . . . . .   92
3 (1) . . . . . . Vodafone Mobile, UK * . . . . . . . $ 66 B ( $ 67 B) . . . Operator . . . . . 110
4 (7) . . . . . . AT&T Wireless, USA * . . . . . . . $ 58 B ( $ 49 B) . . . Operator . . . . . 137
5 (5) . . . . . . Telefonica Movil, Spain * . . . . . . $ 55 B ( $ 55 B) . . . Operator . . . . . 147

6 (6) . . . . . . T-Mobile, Germany *  . . . . . . . . $ 49 B ( $ 50 B)  . . . Operator . . . . . 166
7 (8) . . . . . . Orange Mobile, France * . . . . . . $ 48 B ( $ 47 B) . . . Operator  . . . . . 173
8 (2) . . . . . . Nokia Mobile, Finland * . . . . . . . $ 45 B ( $ 66 B) . . . Handsets . . . . . 188
9 (21) . . . . . Apple iPhone, USA *  . . . . . . . .  $ 42 B ( $ 13 B) . . . Smartphones . . 205
10 (10) . . . . Samsung Mobile, S Korea *  . . .  $ 40 B ( $ 38 B) . . . Handsets . . . . . 215

11 (11) . . . . NTT DoCoMo, Japan *  . . . . . . . $ 38 B ( $ 37 B) . . . . Operator . . . . . 226
12 (9) . . . . . Telecom Italia Mobile, Italy * . . . $ 36 B ( $ 40 B) . . . . Operator . . . . . 245
13 (13) . . . . America Movil, Mexico * . . . . . . $ 34 B ( $ 30 B) . . . . Operator . . . . .272
14 (12) . . . . Sprint Nextel, USA . . . . . . . . . . $ 33 B ( $ 36 B) . . . . Operator . . . . . 289 **
15 (15) . . . . Ericsson Mobil, Sweden *  . . . . . $ 27 B ( $ 24 B) . . . . Networks . . . . 359

16 (16) . . . . China Unicom, China  . . . . . . . . $ 26 B ( $ 22 B) . . . . Operator . . . . . 370 **
17 (18) . . . . Huwaei Mobile, China * . . . . . . . $ 25 B ( $ 19 B) . . . . Networks  . . . . 390
18 (14) . . . . KDDI Keitai, Japan * . . . . . . . . . $ 24 B ( $ 25 B) . . . . Operator . . . . . 405
19 (23) . . . . RIM, Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 20 B ( $ 11 B)  . . . . Smartphones  . 489 **
20 (19) . . . . Softbank Keitai, Japan * . . . . . . $ 19 B ( $ 18 B)  . . . . Operator . . . . . n/a

21 ( n/a )  . . Google Mobile (+ Motorola) * . . . $ 17 B ( n/a ) .. . . . . . Handsets . . . . . n/a
22 (20) . . . . Alcatel Lucent Mobile, France * . $ 16 B ( $ 16 B)  . . . . Networks . . . . . n/a
23 ( n/a )  . . Bharti Airtel, India . . . . . . . . . . . $ 14 B ( $ 9 B ) . . . . . Operator  . . . . . n/a
24 (22) . . . . SK Telecom, S Korea . . . . . . . . $ 13 B ( $ 12 B ) . . . . Operator . . . . . . n/a
25 (24) . . . . Telenor Mobil, Norway *  . . . . . . $ 12 B ( $ 11 B )  . . . . Operator  . . . . . n/a

Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2012, the above table and data may be freely quoted
 
Notes:
* indicates imaginary company, based only on mobile revenues, with imaginary name for the company
** indicates actual real ranking in Fortune Global 500 listing as it is a real company purely in mobile
Note also that the Google company incorporates Motorola Mobility unit revenues, but not other Motorola mobile revenues of its networking etc business.

The top 7 companies in mobile are carriers/operators. The top 3 are not just from different countries, but based on different continents. And for Apple-watchers, not only has 'Apple iPhone' jumped up massively on the list, Apple only making smartphones is almost as big as Nokia with smartphones, dumbphones and the mobile side of Nokia's networking business, combined.

The above chart is indicative and approximate, rounded off to the nearest one billion dollars. The currency fluctuations will impact quite heavily. But if you think about the real power and influence, real revenues, employees, etc, the above gives a good listing of who are the 25 biggest companies in mobile. And while some companies are often in the news, like say Microsoft, a big giant in the IT industry, by its mobile revenues, Microsoft isn't even close to entering the chart. Similarly HP, which bought Palm (but has since discontinued that business) didn't make it to the top 25. The pure smarpthone maker HTC sits just out of the chart and is likely to enter it next year. And the one company that was replaced from the 2010 list - Russia's biggest mobile operator by revenues, MTS, was replaced by another BRIC company biggest operator - Bharti Airtel of India. We can expect in the future more and more of the newcomers on the list to come from Emerging World markets.

Regionally, the biggest companies of our industry are now split so that 9 come from Europe, 9 also from Asia, 6 from North America and 1 from Latin America (but if you want to count Mexico as part of the North American continent as separate from the cultural division then 7 are from the North American continent).

By nations of the Top 25, 5 of the biggest companies come from the USA, 3 from China, 3 from Japan, 2 from South Korea, and 2 from France. And to see how widely dispersed this industry is, those top 25 companies are spread across 15 different countries.

About Apple - remember that this is 'mobile' not 'wireless' or 'portable' so the iPhone is mobile, but other iOS devices, while they are portable like iPad and iPod Touch, they are not mobile devices, their services are not mobile, they do not 'ring in your pocket' haha. Similarly for example notebook and netbook PCs are not counted for Lenovo or Samsung etc. This is strict definition mobile and for Apple that means iPhone and related revenues only (but does include iPhone App Store related revenues too)

You may freely quote and repeat the above chart. And one note on profits. NO ! This chart took enough time from me. I am not going to try to calculate the proportional profits fairly by the about 50 or so companies that are the contenders for this top 25 list, and do that also for the profits. If you want to, go ahead. I have more important things to do, this blog is NOT a financial analysis blog. But as this blog is a mobile industry blog, it does make sense to put the big companies in context, especially across the operators, handset makers and infrastructure providers. Enjoy.

PS a plug. The above chart is of course one of the over 90 tables and charts that are among the topics covered in the TomiAhonen Almanac 2011. The new Almanac 2012 will be released in late January or early February. If you buy the 2011 edition now, you will receive both Almanacs for the price of one. At only 9.99 Euros, the unrestricted pdf based ebook is formated for the smartphone screen so you can have the stats in your pocket every day. The TomiAhonen Almanac is the indispensible industry statistics volume for anyone working in this industry. Take a look at TomiAhonen Almanac 2011 edition.

Comments

[nic]

Pretty amazing. It seems Nokia and Apple are the two with largest changes, Nokia going down and Apple going up. And all only due to them, and not something like the others moving but they keeping in place (That's what happened with Symbian sales, if I remember correctly).

I'm a bit embarrassed that you mention companies from all BRICs, except Brazil. Our operators are all foreigners, at least partially. We do have some hardware manufacturers and software developers who are definitely small. But one day!...

[A Finn]

So, if Apple sells an iPhone to A&T for $500 and A&T to end customer for $700, Apple makes $500 revenue and A&T $700? If so, would it be possible for you make another list based on value addition as well?

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi nic and A

nic - Good points and note, both actually doing EVEN better for full calendar year 2011. I calculated the company sales up to Q2 of 2011 (to be in harmony with the Fortune Global 500 issue). But Apple is growing very strongly and has had a phenomenal Christmas quarter by all data, so if we did the calculation from January to December 2011, Apple would be far bigger still. Note, the other companies on the list would grow only about at the average rate of the global mobile industry. Same is true for Nokia but opposite. The crash in Nokia revenues started on February 2011, after the Elop Effect. So this chart lists the Nokia damage by only less than half of the time. If we measured Nokia from January to December (with almost 11 months of Elop Effect) it would be far smaller still. And again, all signs from Nokia Lumia launch suggests that the Christmas period for Nokia is continuing the bad news.

As to Brazil, I was just there two months ago, giving a keynote at HSM in Sao Paulo and I saw a strong growing interest in mobile, so we will no doubt see plenty of Brazilian competition coming into this space. We see the big Europeans like TIM and Telefonica investing in Brazil for many years, and more recently handset makers like RIM and Apple (Apple's supplier Hon Hai ie Foxconn has just built a factory for iPhones in Brazil). We should see soon some big Brazilian companies taking to this industry and capitalizing on the opportunity.

A - I understand the question, but that is actually not the case with most of the carriers/operators do not subsidise most handsets in most countries. The USA and Japan are the only major countries left where most handsets are subsidised. And in scale, the handset maker industry is worth about 90 Billion dollars roughly while the mobile operator industry is worth almost ten times bigger, so while it could be interesting, in the big picture, it would mostly not matter much to these rankings.

Thank you both for writing

Tomi Ahonen :-)

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