Updating Many Mobile Numbers and Milestones

We've had many stats reported recently, including Chetan Sharma's big market update and a global survey by TNS and many other data points from various sources. Lets take a survey of what kind of numbers we can confirm and update.

THE BIGGEST NUMBER EVER

The 7 Billion milestone is coming in less than 12 months. We've seen this number coming. Some are already suggesting we'll hit the 7 Billion level by the end of this year 2012. I have said it will hit about March-April of 2013. The number of 7 Billion is not really the exciting number, the real number will be the point where there are more active mobile phone subscriptions than humans alive on the planet, so the number will be something like 7.05 Billion or so. But yes, that number is coming next spring.

THE BIG PICTURE STATS

How much money? I reported that we passed 1.3 Trillion dollars in total industry annual revenues in 2011. Now we have Chetan Sharma giving his early estimate for 2012 saying we'll pass 1.5 Trillion dollars this year.

As to the split of mobile data revenues, we have now fresh numbers from Strategy Analytics which found mobile media to be worth 149.8 Billion dollars, and Portio which found mobile messaging to to be worth 202 Billion dollars in 2011. Add those together and you get 352 Billion dollars, where I called it for 2011 at 365 Billion dollars. Close enough.

Chetan also has some other interesting numbers. His count of total global mobile phone users found 1.1 Billion smartphone owners today. That is somewhat above the 910 million that I reported at the end of last year but its close. Of SMS users, Chetan counts 5 Billion active users of SMS text messaging which is the same as I find. Chetan counted 3.2 Billion non-SMS mobile data users; I had that number at 3.0 Billion, so we are again reasonably close.

SOME USER STATS

Then lets go to some user stats. We have been reporting on the early metrics, like SMS and MMS users, messages and revenues for many years now, as that data is usually reasonably well available. But more advanced numbers are difficult to find. Now we have a massive global survey covering 48,000 consumers and several less-frequently reported data points. I calculated the global numbers using those 58 countries as regional samples, and found that globally according to data projected from TNS survey reveals that we currently have 1.6 Billion active users of mobile browsing (I counted it at 1.8 Billion). 

TNS survey data also suggests globally there are 1.3 Billion users of mobile social networking. This number is significantly above the number I reported for the end of 2011 (900 million). I am not disputing the TNS finding, the measurement of mobile social networking users is particularly difficult as so many of those services are locally known but not globally familiar, and are often particular to language-regions. So I accept this definitely as the best number currently. It is obviously also good news..

The TNS survey also gave a number on the users of WiFi services by mobile phone owners at 1.0 Billion. This is consistent with my reported number of the installed base of WiFi capable handsets at 1.1 Billion. Most - but not all - would be used with the WiFi feature at some point by their users. Note that there obviously are more WiFi enabled phones than total smarpthones, because some premium featurephones also have WiFi capability.

One new very good data point that also came from the TNS Survey is the total number of users of QR Codes. That number (estimated by projecting the TNS data as regionally pro-rated users to the total global mobile phone subscriber base by TomiAhonen Consulting) is 380 million. So 9% of the total unique mobile phone user base already has started to use QR codes globally. That is a very strong promising growth rate and suggests more than a quarter of the planet would be using QR codes in about 2-3 years from now.

SILLY STATS

And then we have some of those wonderful stats that make great conversation in presentations and press articles. I've talked about the 150 number, that the average person looks at their phone 150 times per day. That came from Nokia two years ago. Now the CEO of T-Mobile USA, Philipp Humm has said that US mobile phone owners "pick up their phones 150 times per day." Cool. A new independent verification of the 150 number. Now lets see who measures it at 200 in some advanced country or for some heavy user segment like teenagers haha... 150 times per day, by the way, means for every waking hour, we look at your phones once every 6 and a half minutes of every day.

Then the sex stat. A Zeldi survey of 1,000 mothers in the UK, found that .. I'm not making this up .. 12% of British mothers use their mobile phones while having sex. This would be a mindboggling stat, except that it is roughly in line with earlier stats like two years ago we heard that 10% of British youth send SMS text messages while having sex. So yeah, this is consistent with the previous findings too. But you want a sexy stat to quote, here is your 2012 number, courtesy of Zeldi. (the story was at Mediapost, am now having trouble locating article.. will add link if and when I can rediscover it)

And what of our addiction? Vodafone New Zealand released some end-user survey stats at the Tel.Con event in Auckland (sorry, no link, they showed powerpoint slides). They have just found, that for example yes 41% of us use the phone on the toilet and 42% while at the dinner table, but 74% of us access our social networking services from bed. And 23% of New Zealanders have accessed mobile internet services from the beach. Can't live without it, eh?

So there are a few big numbers for us to memorize. And if you have a hard time memorizing all the big numbers of the industry, then there is an easy stats package you can save onto your smartphone or iPad or Kindle or laptop. So please remember, you can get a full unresticted copy of the 2010 edition of the TomiAhonen Almanac right now, without any registration or fee, downloading it directly from Lulu.com - it does not have the very latest stats, obviously, but its all free and if you were digging for some obscure number or needed some scale and historical view, it has over 90 tables, graphs and charts just for you. If you find it useful, also tell your friends to download theirs at TomiAhonen Almanac 2010 free edition.  

Comments

[Esa]

@Baron95

Instead of 'available for download numbers' I would be more interested in actual download numbers. Most interesting would be numbers of active usage.

Users make the ecosystem after all.

[cycnus]

OH MY GOD

WP have many apps...
WOW...
got to buy WP phone now.

but wait.... let see what they have
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/search?q=angry+bird
a search in angry bird give me:
1. PAID angry birds (no free version :( )
2. Angry bird uncovered... is this really count as good apps.
3. Windows Phone News.... oh great, usefull apps... ha ha
4. Angry Birds scoop, it even use icon from Rovio game play... ouch
5. Angry Birds Rio scoops... another great game?
6. Angry Sound ..... weeeee weeeee
7. Poached Eggs ..... Using graphics from angry bird game as the icon.... weeeee
8. Angry Birds Seasons Scoop.... ha ha
9. Angry bird uncovered... same as #2, but in paid version... dumb as....
10. Faling birds.... with icon like a 5th grader try to draw the red angry bird... nice
........... Many more...

Nice try Balmer......
Unfortunately I'm too smart for MS Bullshit!!!

[cycnus]

more:

From: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/06/microsoft-wants-developers-to-create-windows-phones-apps-so-bad-its-paying-them/

... Microsoft’s solution, according to the New York Times, is to pay developers to
... create apps for the Windows Phone Marketplace. Various companies told the Times
... that Microsoft financed Windows Phones apps that would have cost anywhere from
... $60,000 to $600,000 to develop on their own.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/technology/to-fill-out-its-app-store-microsoft-wields-its-checkbook.html

Cut & paste from above link::
After years of struggling in the phone market, Microsoft teamed up with Nokia last year to challenge the dominance of Apple’s iPhone and Google, which makes the Android operating system. The latest fruit of their collaboration is a gleaming machine called the Lumia 900, which goes on sale in the United States on Sunday and is considered to be the first true test of how well the partnership will fare.

But the hundreds of thousands of apps that run on Apple and Android devices will not work on phones like the Lumia 900 that use Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. And many developers are reluctant to funnel time and money into an app for what is still a small and unproved market. So Microsoft has come up with incentives, like plying developers with free phones and the promise of prime spots in its app store and in Windows Phone advertising.

It is even going so far as to finance the development of Windows Phone versions of well-known apps — something that app makers estimate would otherwise cost them anywhere from $60,000 to $600,000, depending on the complexity of the app. The tactic underscores the strong positions of Google and Apple, neither of which have to pay developers to make apps.

When Microsoft offered to underwrite a Windows Phone version of Foursquare, the mobile social network, Holger Luedorf, Foursquare’s head of business development, did not hesitate to say yes.

“We have very limited resources, and we have to put them toward the platforms with the biggest bang for our buck,” he said. “But we are a social network and it is incredibly important for us to be available on every platform.”

Foursquare has in-house engineers working on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry versions of its service. But had Microsoft not offered to pay an outside company to do the work, Mr. Luedorf said Foursquare would “probably not” have developed an app for Windows Phone.

Ben Huh, chief executive of the Cheezburger Network, a collection of humor and entertainment sites, said Microsoft’s market share was too small to warrant in-house development of a Windows Phone app. But when Microsoft approached his company about making an application featuring funny photos of cats, he agreed. “They made it very easy for us,” he said. “They took care of everything.”

Casey McGee, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone at Microsoft, confirmed that the company offered an array of incentives for developers, but he declined to name the apps Microsoft had financed.

Mr. McGee conceded that there were still holes in Microsoft’s lineup. “We are by no means satisfied with our catalog,” he said. “That’s something we can get better at, and do better at, every day.”

Microsoft now has more than 70,000 apps in its app store, including big names like Netflix, YouTube, the Weather Channel, Amazon Kindle and the game Fruit Ninja. Apple, by comparison, has more than 600,000 apps, and Android has nearly 400,000. Analysts say that Microsoft does not need a million apps to appeal to phone buyers — just the ones that are so popular and mainstream that they feel like features of the phone itself.

“Once you get to 100,000, the number stops being important,” said Jan Dawson, an analyst at Ovum, a research firm in Britain. “I’m not saying they can take their foot off the gas pedal. They still need the apps that are dealbreakers for buyers.”

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, a number of popular applications are noticeably missing from its store, including Pandora, the streaming music service; Instagram, the photo-sharing application; and games by Zynga. AT&T, the sole carrier of the Lumia 900 in the United States, has said that it will train its sales force to talk up the apps that are available and give demos of alternatives to curious shoppers.

The Windows Phone store has a version of the app phenomenon Angry Birds, but not the sequel from its maker Rovio, Angry Birds Space, which has also been a big hit. Rovio’s marketing chief, Peter Vesterbacka, said last month that it would not be worth the effort to bring the game to Windows Phone. But later that same day, Mikael Hed, its chief executive, said the company was “working toward” building a Windows Phone version. Rovio has not said when that might happen, and both companies declined to discuss what caused the about-face.

Often Microsoft’s problem is not outright refusal by a developer, but more that its platform is simply not a priority. Sonos, which makes apps for Apple and Android devices that allow customers to control its networked home audio equipment, does not yet know when it will release a comparable Windows Phone app.

“We’re definitely watching it carefully,” said John MacFarlane, chief executive of Sonos. “We believe it’s going to be a player.”

Microsoft has also approached news organizations, including The New York Times, about having a presence in its app store. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for The New York Times Company, said that its Windows Phone app was built by outside developers, and that “Microsoft provides assistance to help ensure that the app is best in class.” Ms. Murphy declined to say whether Microsoft had paid for the app’s development.
Readers’ Comments

Even Facebook did not build its own Windows Phone app, the creation of which was underwritten by Microsoft. Derick Mains, a spokesman for Facebook, said that for platforms other than Apple’s and Google’s, Facebook encourages companies to make their own apps, certifying them before they are released.

Microsoft’s weak position in mobile apps is in stark contrast to the clout it had with developers in the heyday of the PC era. Its success with Windows was partly built on an all-out effort it made in the 1980s and ’90s to get independent software companies to make Windows the primary operating system for which they wrote applications.

That influence began to weaken somewhat when the Web era took off and more companies began to design services and products that ran through browsers. But it has accelerated further as much of the creative talent in the developer world has shifted toward smartphone and iPad applications.

Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Microsoft’s relative weakness was a function of not having a big enough audience of users. “Developers go where the money is, and the money is where people are,” she said.

Ms. Epps noted that Microsoft and Nokia currently appeared to be going after customers who are not already using iPhones and Android devices, and so may not be as familiar with the mobile apps they cannot get on Windows Phones. To someone moving from a BlackBerry or an old-fashioned feature phone, the selection of Windows Phone apps is likely to be satisfying, she said.

Ben Lamm, who runs Chaotic Moon, an app development studio that developed Windows Phone apps for TripIt and Pizza Hut, among others, said larger companies were warming up to Windows Phone.

“We’re starting to get requests from firms that want a Windows Phone app,” he said. “It’s still only 5 to 10 percent of our total requests, but very different than a year ago, when only Microsoft was calling us to do work.”

[Brian Daly]

Holy cow, it's incredible that Tomi actually has dedicated trolls that have taken up residence here (@baron95 @tomifan). The persistence is intriguIng. Makes for a much more interesting comments section. Maybe Tomi hires them on the side:)

[Alex Kerr]

Thanks Tomi - I'd love to know numbers for phones that can run Java Mobile (J2ME). I generally go by the 3 billion figure, but I actually think that will have grown, as Series 30 type devices get upgraded. Noting also that Blackberries, Symbians and some Androids (all Androids?) can also run JME apps as can some (all?) Bada phones. In fact the only ones that can't I think are WinPho and iPhone.

[cycnus]

@Alex Kerr

I was also wondering how good J2ME were especially in high end device.

I was somehow getting an impression that J2ME is die, do you know any GOOD/High quality J2ME apps. I just want to know if J2ME still alive and doing good.

Thanks.

[P910i - the original iPhone ;-)]

In other news, WP7 is now on track of becoming the sixth mobile "ecosystem" behind (Q1 2012 market share in brackets) Android (56%), iOS (23%), Symbian (8.6%), RIM (6.9%), and Bada (2.7%): http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2017015

Also folks, please keep to conversation civilized - Tomi might be the bearer of bad news, but for sure he is not the one to blame for getting Nokia/WP7 into troubled waters!

[Ralph Lauren pas cher]

Tomi might be the bearer of bad news, but for sure he is not the one to blame for getting Nokia/WP7 into troubled waters!

[Jrrrl]

Hey Tomi, I was amazed by the fact that bada has outsold windows phone (17M -->9M) so far. Both were launched feb 2010 right?
it would be interesting to compare sold units from all platforms from the time period of Q2 2010 - Q1 2012.
Or/and to compare android & iOS growth rate from 2 first years to windows phone.

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