The Annual Mobile Industry Numbers and Stats Blog - Yep, this year we will hit the Mobile Moment..

So its that time again. I just finished the 2013 edition of the TomiAhonen Almanac, my annual statistical volume on the status of the mobile industry, and as usual, to celebrate that publication, I will do the big update to all the mobile numbers. You may want to bookmark this page for future reference

MOBILE NOW 6.7 BILLLION ACCOUNTS

So the monster number first. The global count of active mobile subscriptions reached 6.7 Billion at the end of 2012, and yes, this summer we will hit the 'mobile moment' ie that point in time when for the first time ever on this planet, a consumer technology will match the human population in size. The planet has 7.1 Billion people and as we grew subscriptions 14% last year, its rather clear we will hit that 7.1 Billion number around the summer of 2013. What was the penetration rate per capita at the end of last year? 93.7%. And there is no stopping that growth, don't listen to those who once again suggest that we are 'near saturation'. Hogwash! Several countries, led by Hong Kong are past 200% mobile penetration rate per capita. This growth is not stopping anytime soon.

So lets dig in. What does 6.7 Billion mobile subscriptions mean, then? They are not in reality all individual unique users, as we well know by now, many of us walk around with two phones, or others with one phone but several mobile accounts in the form of SIM cards. How many of the 6.7 Billion is the 'unique user' number? 4.3 Billion unique mobile phone owners/users on the planet. 60.1% of the true alive human population does have at least one mobile phone and at least one mobile account to themselves. Never has any technology been this widely spread. We are hitting the limits of electricity (600 million live beyond the reach of the electrical grid) and literacy (800 million adults are illiterate on the planet) yet even they do have mobile phone accounts. Some phones sold in the Emerging World are sold with extra-capacity batteries, other phones are sold with two or three batteries to help with the electricity problem. Vodafone introduced in Africa a charge that works on solar energy and for rainy days, through peddaling on your bicycle. And literacy? Yes, the illiterate won't be buying your smartphone apps anytime soon, but many voice-oriented services are highly appreciated delivering news, sports scores, music etc (and advertising) through the voice channel on the mobile.

ACTUAL PHONES - 5.2 BILLION IN USE

So then what of the phones? The planet has now 5.2 Billion mobile phone handsets in use, so for the 4.3 Billion unique users, so 26% of us - 1.1 Billion people already - walk around with two phones in their pockets. As I've been reporting on this phenomenon over the years, it is no longer a surprise in most markets. But yes, 5.2 Billion digital devices in human hands worldwide, every one of which can do voice calls and SMS text messaging. Most which have a color screen and often camera too. Most which can do rudimentary internet services (on WAP) and the vast majority which can do full HTML 'real internet' as well. While only 22% of all phones in use globally are 'smartphones' actually more than half of all phones in use can accept apps through such technologies as Java.

83% of all phones in use are cameraphones, so 4.4 Billion cameras are used in the world that are also connected to the network and are always carried, rather than the more premium stand-alone cameras that often sit in their cases back home. More than 90% of all humans who have ever taken a picture, have only done so on a cameraphone, not a stand-alone digital or film-based 'traditional' camera.

How massive is this? Mobile phones connected and in use totally dwarf any other tech, outnumbering television sets by more than 2 to 1, personal computers of all types, including tablet PCs like the iPad, by more than 4 to 1, DVD players by 5 to 1. Newspaper circulations by 12 to 1. Even after we account for us Westerners owning many FM radio sets, in our clock-radios, our boom boxes, our home HiFi sets and our cars, when counting for the whole planet, the number of mobile phones exceeds FM radios even, today. The second most sold consumer tech is the personal computer (including desktops, laptops and tablet PCs like the iPad) which has annual sales of about 350 million per year. The third most sold tech is televisions which only sell 250 million per year. Everything else is peanuts below that, from gaming consoles to cameras. But mobile phones? Sold over 1.7 Billion units last year! And by Christmas Quarter, nearly half of all new phones sold worldwide were smartphones. This year, 2013, we will see the cross-over point, where half of all new phones sold will be smartphones. No wonder the world's largest consumer electronics giant, Sony says that mobile is front and center of their future. Here is your table:

MOBILE SUBCRIBERS 2012
Total active mobile subscriptions or accounts . . . . 6.7B (was 5.9B in 2011, growth 14%)
Unique mobile users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 B (was 4.0B in 2011, growth 8%)
Actual mobile phones in use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 B (was 4.8B in 2011, growth 8%)
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

INDUSTRY WORTH $1.45 TRILLION

So who is the richest man on the planet? No longer Bill Gates of Microsoft, it is Carlos Slim the CEO of America Movil the Mexico-based telecoms giant. Apple Computer changed its name to just Apple when it launched the iPhone and today calls itself a mobile company. Samsung the world's biggest tech company makes half of its profits through the mobile unit. Companies from Warner Music to Electronic Arts to the Associated Press newspaper guild are turning to mobile to make more money. The BBC said that all broadcast content, TV and radio, will be available on mobile. Visa says the future of payments, yes, the future of money itself, is mobile. What is this industry like?

Well, as the global economy struggled to get some anemic growth in 2012, the mobile industry grew its revenues by a massive 12% and hit 1.45 Trillion US dollars in total for the year. The mobile industry set the record for the fastest industry ever to reach that massive Trillion-dollar level (far bigger than for example the PC or TV or internet or advertising industries, just so you have some context). This global economic juggernaut is fuelled primarily by our voice calls and mobile messages (SMS and MMS) but there is an increasing part of revenues coming from 'premium data' services and also a healthy slice from hardware, in particular the handset sales. 3 out of every 4 dollars earned in the industry was service revenues, the remaining 1 out of 4 is hardware revenues ie handsets, their accessories, and the networking infrastructure needed to run these massive mobile telecoms networks. The major breakdown of the industry revenue is:

MOBILE INDUSTRY REVENUES 2012
Service Revenues . . . . . . . . .$1,101 B
 - Voice calls . . . . . . . . . . . . $  664 B
 - Non-messaging data . . . . . $  243 B
 - Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . $  193 B
Hardware Revenues . . . . . . . $   350 B
 - Handset sales . . . . . . . . .  $  240 B
 - Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . $    65 B
 - Networking equipment . . . . $    45 B
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared


AVERAGE USER

So what do we do with our phones? I did the analysis of that statistic earlier, that we look at our phones 150 times per day. That gives a pretty good idea of where our time goes with the phone - messaging obviously, and voice calls, but also our clock and alarm, the calendar, our camera, the web browser, some games and music, news alerts etc. How do we use our phones? This is how I broke it down:

How Typical User Looks at Mobile 150 Times Per Day Globally
Messaging related 23 times per day
Voice call related 22 times per day
Clock 18 times per day
Music Player 13 times per day
Gaming 12 times per day
Social Media 9 times per day
Alarm 8 times per day
Camera 8 times per day
News and alerts 6 times per day
Calendar 5 times per day
Search 3 times per day
Other random web browsing 3 times per day
Charging phone 3 times per day
Voice mail 1 times per day
Other miscellaneous uses 10 times per day
Total 150 times per day
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

MOBILE HANDSET FEATURES

Then we of course look at the handset side of mobile in the Almanac. I devote a whole chapter to the handset numbers including the highly popular chart updating the global mobile installed base of the 5.2 Billion handsets in use, by their features. How many have a color screen, or have a camera, or have WiFi, etc. Here are the top-line numbers:

POPULAR MOBILE PHONE FEATURES OF INSTALLED BASE 2012
SMS texting ability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100%
Any kind of browser (including WAP) . . . . 98%
MMS multimedia messaging capable . . . . 88%
Cameraphone (ie has inbuilt camera) . . . . 83%
Bluetooth  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79%
3G capable or faster cellular connectivity . 45% *
WiFi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26%
Smartphone . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 22%
 * note, many 3G phones in use are not connected to a 3G network, and even often if they are, are not on 3G dataplan pricing plans, so 3G user numbers are far below this installed base
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

Much much more in the TomiAhonen Almanac 2013 including the penetration rates of touch screens, of QWERTY keyboards, the camera resolutions of cameraphones, etc etc etc, plus of course also the 'horse race' statistics of who sold the most phones last year by brand.

SMARTPHONE INSTALLED BASED BY PLATFORM

What of the mobile 'ecosystems' out there? You often hear of single quarter sales that may fluctuate a lot. Individual handset makers may shift their allegiances from one smartphone OS platform to another. What is the state of the industry now, by installed base of smartphone platforms. That is the 'bottom line' question, isn't it? I keep reporting the status of the installed base here on this blog as I do my quarterly review of the smartphone races. This is what the world looked like at the end of 2012:

Installed Base of Smartphones by Operating System 2012 (vs 2011)
1 (2) - Google Android . . . . . . . . . . 48% (31%)
2 (3) - Apple iPhone  . . . . . . . . . . . 19% (16%)
3 (1) - Nokia Symbian . . . . . . . . . . 15% (33%)
4 (4) - RIM Blackberry . . . . . . . . . . . 8% (12%)
5 (5) - Samsung bada  . . . . . . . . . .  2% ( 3%)
6 (7) - MS Windows Phone  . . . . . .  2% ( 1%)
7 (6) - MS Windows Mobile . . . . . . . 1% ( 2%)
Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1% (3%)
TOTAL SMARTPHONES IN USE . . . 1,320 Million
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

But there is so much more in the Almanac. I have whole chapters on mobile advertising and marketing, mobile music, mobile social networking, mobile TV and video, mobile gaming, mobile messaging - yes, of course this year's edition includes OTT messaging cannibalization measured - etc, etc, etc. I give you counts of apps and voice calls and enterprise/business accounts and 3G migration rates. The Almanac includes a whole chapter on the Digital Divide, so it shows how the advanced 'West' or Industrialized World mobile numbers differ from the 'Emerging World' where most people live, in Africa, Latin America and the less-developed parts of Asia like India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan etc. I also give more details on the business-side of this newest and fastest-growing Trillion-dollar industry ever, like my exclusive TomiAhonen Consulting index of mobile leadership that many seem to like and use.

WHAT COUNTRIES ARE THE GLOBAL LEADERS IN MOBILE INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION

Here is the newest top 12 ranking of the world's most advanced countries by their mobile industry, handset, consumer and services maturity:

WORLD'S MOST ADVANCED COUNTRIES RANKED BY THE MATURITY OF THEIR MOBILE INDUSTRY
1 (1) - Japan
2 (3) - Singapore
3 (2) - South Korea
4 (5) - Finland
5 (6 tie) - Taiwan
6 (6 tie) - Sweden
7 (4) - Italy
8 (9) - Hong Kong
9 (8) - Austria
10 tie (13 tie) - Denmark
10 tie (12) - UK
12 (10) - Australia
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

And yes, the USA is gaining on that chart, and has moved up from its rank last year of 17th to its current ranking of tied for 15th with the Netherlands, just ahead of UAE, and just behind Israel and Norway. But when the USA is barely past its 100% per-capita mobiel subscriber count - and Hong Kong for example has passed 200%, or the USA is near 50% smartphone ownership where Singapore is past 80%, and where the USA still sells handsets and subscriptions to second generation 2G network based technology while Japan has shut down the 2G networks and is all 3G or faster, obviously there are other countries that are well ahead of the USA in their mobile industry. Harsh truths, but we deal with the truth on this blog. And yes, for those who do not know my index, I use the four most used and most representative statistics on the maturity of the industry, to generate my index: the mobile phone subscription penetration rate per capita; the migration rate to more advanced networks, the mobile service adoption rate, and the migration of the handsets to more advanced phones (ie currently measuring the migration from dumbphones to smartphones). And most international mobile industry experts will agree that Japan, Singapore and South Korea are world leaders in mobile, and that Finland, Sweden and Italy are the European leaders, where the Industrialized part of Asia and advanced parts of Europe are well ahead of North America, Latin America and Africa in their mobile adoption and yes, Australia is well ahead of North America as well. By the way, the Almanac has much more on the index and the top 30 countries if you need more.

But there are much much more data points in the Almanac, including a stats table section where we have the 60 biggest mobile countries and details on them like their subscriber counts, penetration rates per capita, and exclusively, also their unique mobile owner counts, plus such data as what countries have launched 3G and what have launched MVNO services etc. There are tables of what countries lead by subscriber counts, by penetration rates, by 3G migration rates etc. And there is the list of the biggest mobile operator groups.

WHO ARE THE GIANT COMPANIES OF THIS TRILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY?

And as always, the TomiAhonen Almanac includes my exclusive listing of the world's largest companies, when measured only by their mobile revenues. So for example for Apple we remove the Mac, iPad and iPod related incomes, for Vodafone we remove their fixed landline business and for Samsung we remove their plasma TV business and chips business, etc. What are the world's largest companies in 2012 when we only measure their mobile business? This is what the top 10 looks like for 2012:

BIGGEST COMPANIES WHEN ONLY COUNTING THEIR MOBILE BUSINESS
(This chart data is harmonized for the annual release of the Fortune Global 500 issue)
(Data is current as of the second calendar quarter of 2012 ie through about end of June 2012)
1 (1) China Mobile, China, operator . . . . . . . $ 87 B
2 (2) Verizon Wireless, USA, operator  . . . . $ 75 B
3 (9) Apple iPhone, USA, smartphones . . . . $ 74 B
4 (10) Samsung Galaxy, S Korea, handsets . $ 69 B
5 (4) AT&T Wireless, USA, operator . . . . . .  $ 62 B
6 (3) Vodafone Mobile, UK, operator . . . . . .  $ 60 B
7 (5) Telefonica Movil, Spain, operator . . . . . $ 55 B
8 (11) NTT DoCoMo, Japan, operator . . . . . . $ 48 B
9 (6) T-Mobile, Germany, operator . . . . . . . . $ 47 B
10 (7) Orange Mobile, France, operator . . . .  $ 46 B
Note: All except China Mobile in the above chart are 'virtual companies' with imaginary names to reflect their mobile businesses and their mobile branding.
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2013
This data may be freely shared

The above data shows how strongly Apple and Samsung have already jumped up the charts powered by their smartphone businesses (and by contrast, the once giant 'Nokia Mobile' has tumbled down to 12th and is falling further). The European operators/carriers saw their industry hit by the new EU regulations that cut their international interconnect revenues, so all Europe-based carriers/operators saw a bad fiscal year and their rankings tumbled for the year. That should stabilize now for the next year. And as to Samsung and Apple, remember, their phenomenal growth is continuing. This data was through only the second calendar quarter of 2012, to harmonize this chart with the annual Fortune Global 500 issue. So the two smartphone maker giants are sure to move up even more for next year.

So there is your summary data for the industry for big industry numbers. This year, two huge milestones coming - the Mobile Moment will hit us this summer, when the count of active mobile subscriptions will match the count of human population alive on the planet, and also probably in the summer, we will reach the point where half of all new phones sold will be smartphones.

As always, you may share and use any data in this blog, create your own diagrams and pictures, use this data in infographics etc. Please refer to this blog if you can, or just list that the source is the TomiAhonen Almanac 2013.

And for those who want to see it, or order it, remember the Almanac only costs 9.99 Euros and you can have all these stats - and literally 91 more charts and tablets not mentioned in this blog (the latest Almanac has 98 tables and charts in total) - on an ebook you can install onto your smartphone, iPad or laptop and carry all the mobile data at your fingertips. For those who already own the 2012 edition, all the data is updated obviously, and new charts in the 2013 version that weren't in the 2012 edition are: 150 Times Per day (in mobile Customers chapter), a chart showing MMS migration rate from SMS and another showing OTT cannibalization are new, while the OTT user count is added to mobile messaging user chart (in Messaging chapter),  the Social Networking chapter adds a table of the biggest social networks when measured by their mobile users. The 2013 edition of the Almanac runs 194 pages. To see more here TomiAhonen Almanac 2013. 

Comments

[hrx]

Yesterday's National Geographic Photo of the Day - Kyrgyz nomads in Afghanistan - vividly illustrates the second section ("Actual Phones - 5.2 billion in use") in the post. The caption under the picture tells us that although there is no cell service on the plateau, Kyrgyz herders use their mobiles to take photos and listen to music, keeping the mobiles charged using solar powered car batteries.

Link: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/kyrgyz-herders-paley/

[cycnus.i.cant.post]

Samsung drop WP tablet in black hole:
www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a463727/samsung-to-drop-windows-rt-ativ-tablet-in-europe-over-weak-demand.html

[cycnus.i.cant.post]

EU slap microsoft US$ 731 million
http://readwrite.com/2013/03/06/ec-imposes-731-million-fine-for-microsofts-technical-error

[Winter]

I am wondering. What will be the next "function" to migrate to mobile phones?

We already saw landlines, browsing, camera's and music players move to mobile. Social media and banking is almost completely over to mobile.

[cycnus]

@Winter

How about Medical?

I know there were a Blood test equipment that will send the result via BlueTooth to Smartphone. There's also a health band that monitor your heart beat and send it to smartphone.

[top7mobileapps]

Two upcoming device of nokia could be launched in 2013 http://mobileupdate24.blogspot.com/2013/03/nokia-eos-could-sport-decadent-chassis.html

[Brendan]

"Never has any technology been this widely spread. We are hitting the limits of electricity..."

?
Fire? Textiles?

[Winter]

@cycnus
"How about Medical?"

I was more thinking along the lines of newspapers, magazines, books, radio, TV, DVD?

[Winter]

@Brendan
"Fire? Textiles?"

Fire is pre-human. Clothing itself too. But textiles (eg, cotton) and safety matches could qualify. Iron and steel, and knives would qualify too.

[tired]

Off topic, but fyi, BlackBerry Z10 pre-order for preferred carrier in Malaysia sold out in 3 days. All 10,000 units. Lumia returned back to local distributor by the carrier due to lack of demand. If only elop had gone either the N9, imagine where Nokia could have been a year ago.

[writingsmswind]

Now write your sms or email without pressing button or touch the screen. Simply write in wind. http://mobileupdate24.blogspot.com/2013/03/now-type-your-sms-emails-without.html

[jona]

great

[notzed]

@Brendan: The wheel? :)

[mobileupdate24]

This year will be for best mobile. Samsung launching new Fablet. That's great. Nokia bringing nice windows phone also.

[rain]

Mobile applications today is very trending, different apps has unique functionality.

[Winter]

People are starting to come up with estimates of 2 million Android activations per day.

I think this is somewhat premature. I would estimate that point to be reached next month. But it is close.

http://www.asymco.com/2013/03/11/where-are-the-android-users/

[Winter]

And the countdown for 1 billion android activations has been set in. Expect this point to be reached this summer. Maybe even early this summer.

http://slumz.boxden.com/f244/countdown-one-billion-when-will-android-one-billion-devices-1893948/

[wizz33]

Microsoft lowering prices

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/150130-microsoft-cuts-the-price-of-windows-8-and-office-2013-to-spur-slow-adoption

[Lasko]

Never mind! Microsoft is going to kill Windows anyway.

http://pcportal.org.ru/news/microsoft_otkazhetsja_ot_rabochego_stola_v_windows_blue/2013-03-14-942

"Microsoft plans to give up all the usual desktop to its new operating system, Windows Blue. ... This is necessary not only to bring the interface to a single concept, but for ease of reading the OS end users."

Windows 9 / Blue removes the classical desktop altogether.

[Tester]

Interesging article about Samsung's attitude towards Windows Phone 8:

http://www.kpopstarz.com/articles/22744/20130314/windows-phone-8-sabotaged-samsung-tizen-os-microsoft-web-demo.htm

It seems to confirm what I suspected all along: Samsung never took this as a serious option. They just went along in case it became successful - and of course to do some sabotage if needed.