Mobile is the hottest industry. Banking and payments are rushing to mobile. Governments doing healthcare and education with mobile. Travel from airlines to taxis to trains and busses to hotel bookings is going mobile. Your driver's licence is migrating to the mobile phone as are your keys to your home. And all the other big tech stories from Internet of Things (IoT) to 'Big Data' analytics to Cloud computing - are all dependent on mobile. And next week we have the massive industry event in Barcelona, Mobile World Congress. My brand new TomiAhonen Almanac 2017 is now finished and is released today. So this is the perfect time to do my annual 'State of Mobile' blog of the major statistics. What are the big numbers. Lets start with reach. Yes, mobile is by far the most widely-spread communication technology humankind has ever witnessed.
UPDATED 28 Feb 2017 - Note below this article now adds 3 charts as excepted from the Almanac 2017 based on the votes of a Twitter & blog contest. See below charts with Augmented Reality revenues, Internet Access counts, and Mobile Gamer numbers. .
7.8 BILLION MOBILE SUBSCRIPTIONS ACTIVE TODAY
So the big number. Its now 7.8 Bees. Bees as in Billions. 7.8 Billion mobile accounts are active and in use today, for a planet that only has 7.4 Billion human beings alive. To be precise, we are just slightly shy of that 7.8, I rounded it up (we will be there by March of this year) so technically on January 1, 2017, we had 7.75 Billion active mobile accounts for the planet with 7.4 Billion people. That gives us a planetary mobile subscription penetration rate of 105%. But lets dig in a little bit, what else do we know about these 7.75 Billion mobile accounts.
First off, not all are actually used by human beings. Already 430 million of the total accounts are used by Machines in various M2M (Machine-to-Machine) uses like for example reading a water or electricity meter. M2M accounts will form the bulk of IoT Internet of Things type of connections and M2M subcriptions are growing at faster rate than the industry on the whole.
That means the number of mobile accounts actually held by humans is 7.32 Billion, just tantalizingly close but not quite the same as the total planetary population. We are at 99% human penetration rate if counted per capita. That, however, includes babies and very young kids who will not be using mobile phones, so obviously the 7.32 Billion human subscriptions are bunched so that some of us walk around with two or more phones or at least two or more SIM cards. Do we know the UNIQUE number of mobile users? Yes we do. That number is now 5.15 Billion human beings. And that is the very real human adoption level of mobile phones, and it is at 69.6% across all humans alive. Yes, seven out of every ten humans of any age, will have a mobile phone today. Lets do a little table to illustrate these numbers:
GLOBAL MOBILE SUBSCRIPTIONS IN JANUARY 2017
Total Mobile Subscriptions Including M2M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.75 Billion
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) subscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.43 Billion
Mobile Subscriptions Held by Humans Including Multiple Accounts . . 7.32 Billion
Unique Humans with Mobile Accounts (at least one account) . . . . . . . 5.15 Billion
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
These numbers become numbing and some context is worth taking into consideration. Obviously no digital services come anywhere near close (Facebook, Windows, Whatsapp, Skype, Android etc). When we take more basic measures, we start to understand the magnitude of those numbers. First what about 'adults'? The total adult population of planet earth is 5.03 Billion. Yet there are 5.15 Billion unique mobile phone users. Obviously its the teenagers who are skewing this number, because not all adults have a mobile phone today, in particular not in the poorest nations. Then lets consider indoor plumbing. Only 47% of the planet's population live in a home that has indoor plumbing and running water. Thats 3.5 Billion people. But 5.15 Billion people have a mobile phone. Or if you consider a banking account. I don't mean credit card account. I mean simple banking account into which your employer can pay your salary. The World Bank counts that there are 2.6 Billion humans with at least one bank account. But twice that number have a mobile phone (and account).
MORE SMARTPHONES THAN DUMBPHONES
So then lets look at the handset stats. 2016 is the year the world's installed base shifted from being predominantly 'dumbphones' aka 'featurephones' and now the majority of all mobile phones in use are smartphones. How many phones are there in the wild? 5.75 Billion. 3.2 Billion of those are smartphones and 2.55 Billion are dumbphones. As the unique mobile user count is 5.15 Billion, we also can see that there are 600 million 'second phones' in use. Those are now almost all smartphones. So in terms of the unique user base, 5.15 Billion, that splits so that 2.6 Billion humans have a smartphone and 2.55 Billion have a dumbphone. Of the smartphone owners, nearly one in four (23%) has two smartphones. Lets do another table
GLOBAL MOBILE HANDSETS IN USE BY TYPE AS OF JANUARY 2017
Total Mobile Phones in Use (any type) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.75 Billion
Smartphones in use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.20 Billion
Second Smartphones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.60 Billlion
Primary Smartphones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.60 Billion
Dumbphones in use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.55 Billion
Unique Humans with Mobile Accounts (at least one account) . . . . 5.15 Billion
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
Those are mighty big numbers. More people have mobile phones than have TV sets, personal computers (even when Tablets are included in the count), or cars or stand-alone cameras (digital or film-based) or even wristwatches. No gadget in human history has reached this level of ownership. While we are looking at handsets, lets do the proportion ie the split by smart vs dumb phones.
PROPORTION OF HANDSETS IN USE BY TYPE
Proportion of All Mobile Handsets in Use That Are Smartphones . . . . 56% (3.2B out of 5.75B)
Proportion of All Mobile Handsets in Use That Are Dumbphones . . . . 44% (2.55B out of 5.75B)
Proportion of Mobile Owners Who Use a Smartphone (1 or 2) . . . . . . 51% (2.6B out of 5.15B)
Proportion of Mobile Owners Who Use a Dumbphone . . . . . . . . . . . . 49% (2.55B out of 5.15B)
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
That is how the handset market is split. Out of all people who have at least one mobile phone, just over half (51%) now have a smartphone (at least one). But when the connected handset population is counted, then the smartphones outnumber dumbphones already at a ratio of 56/44.
HOW BIG IS 1.8 TRILLION DOLLARS
So next, lets look at the money... Thats a fun topic in any industry isn't it? There are nice big global industries like say gaming, or movies, or music, or radio, or TV, or the internet, or the PC industry. Some of them have been around for ages - movies more than 100 years - others are new like the internet industry only became a commercially viable consumer business in the 1990s about 25 years ago. So consider each of those industries. They sustain typically a type of device for consumers - to watch TV or listen to radio or a Playstation or Xbox to play some videogames, etc. They are global industries and we know the brands well, like the BBC and HBO and Electronic Arts/EA and Nintendo now with Super Mario Brothers back in fashion. Now consider .. mobile. Mobile is 38 years old as an industry (younger than videogames or TV but older than the internet). How do they scale? Well, Mobile is bigger than music. Mobile is bigger than movies. Mobile is bigger than global radio. Mobile is bigger than global TV. Mobile is bigger than worldwide internet business and mobile is yes, bigger than the global PC industry. No. Wait. Mobile is so big, mobile is bigger than music, movies, radio, TV, internet and PC industries - COMBINED. Mobile utterly DWARFS those other industries. Yes, mobile is THREE times as big as the global TV industry. Mobile is SIX times as big as the worldwide internet business. Mobile is MASSIVE. And mobile set the record for the fastest growth of any industry from zero dollars to one Trillion dollars (1,000 Billion) in annual revenues, doing that in its first 29 years. Nobody has broken that record. Mobile is literally the fastest-growing giant industry on the planet. Or to put it another way - mobile is the fastest way to become rich! Mobile is the fastest way to make money.
Where is the money? Most is in services. The telcos/operators/carriers take about a third of the total industry income. Handsets account for close to a quarter. The rest? Most goes to various content and service providers but also some is earned by the infrastructure vendors and an increasing slice goes to handset accessories.
Talking about money and mobile, how about mobile payments? We've seen how rapidly some fall in love with the utility of paying for a coffee at Starbucks using the Starbucks mobile wallet. Or how some are loving their Apple Pay or other mobile payment solutions. But did you know that most who pay using mobile phones are not using NFC or a payment app? No, more than half of the world's mobile payments are made using... SMS text messaging (think of M-Pesa out of Kenya). There are other very simple ways to pay too, like USSD and WAP billing (aka 'carrier billing'). A study by Visa last year found that 54% of Europeans are already making mobile payments. You'd think that the Nordic countries or Britain would be in the lead (they are close to the top) but Visa found that the two countries in Europe where mobile payments are most used, are Turkey and Romania. Who knew? Its not just the Helsinki public transportation in Finland anymore or the parking in Norway. Now mobile payments are massive in China, in Russia, and taking off rapidly in India. So what is the number you ask? 2.4. Yes 2.4 Billion people today use mobile to make payments worldwide. There are more people using mobile to pay, than who own a credit card. Mobile payments are now closing in on the total number of humans who have bank accounts (will pass that number later this year).
If you thought mobile was big; think again. Mobile is FAR bigger than you thought. It was twenty years ago that mobile payments started (in Finland, to pay for Coca Cola at two vending machines, using SMS). Now there are more people using mobile phones to make payments than use credit cards. That is a wild thought!
CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT
So what do we DO with our mobiles? We consume content. Mobile gaming for example. Pokemon Go has recently had 'bad press' that its users are 'no longer as enthusiastically playing' the game. Baloney! All games - absolutely every game from Pac Man to Angry Birds - every game experiences a decline after its initial excitement. That is NORMAL. What is NOT normal, is that a game breaks all the records. Pokemon Go is the fastest game in history to reach half a billion downloads (did it in 4 months, four times faster than Angry Birds the previous champion). And Pokemon Go utterly devastated the record for fastest game to earn a Billion dollars from launch. Pokemon Go broke one Billion dollars in seven months from launch. THAT is the power of mobile. There are currently 2.0 Billion active mobile gamers who download games or play online on their mobiles (so excluding those who may play a game that was pre-loaded on the phone).
What else? We consume news, we use our social media, we upload pictures (selfies selfies selfies), we educate ourselves, we diagnose ourselves of any illnesses, we listen to music, and we create our own content from blogs to Twitter to YouTube videos. There has never been a digital device as versatile as mobile is today. The total value of mobile data services in 2016 was 407 Billion dollars (this is excluding 'voice calls'). And that is obviously not smartphone apps. Apps only work as a revenue source for gaming (and social media). Apps can be good for some consumer experiences but as a revenue-generator, apps are a disaster. No, most of mobile content is earned the old-fashioned way, with premium SMS, with MMS, with 'carrier billing' WAP-billing mobile internet content etc. And advertising.
MOBILE ADS NOW 93 BILLION DOLLARS
That reminds me, the value of mobile advertising is now at 93 Billion dollars worldwide. Yes, again mobile ads grew by another 45% from the year before. It is the fastest-growing sector in mobile by revenues right now. More people receive ads on their mobile phones than place phone calls on their mobile 'phones'. Mobile ads account for nearly one out of every five dollars earned in mobile data revenues - and mobile accounts for about one in five dollars out of the global advertising expenditure of yes, the ad industry. Mobile is by far the fastest-growing part of the ad industry.
INTERNET USE ONLY 6% NEVER USE MOBILE
The shift in internet use from the personal computer to mobile has been dramatic. The first mobile internet service was launched in Japan in 1999. As more mobile internet enabled phones and services, plus faster speed networks and lower data costs all helped drive internet migration, very soon the predominant mode of internet access was 'use both'. It was the type of consumer who used both a mobile phone and a PC (including tablet PC) some of the time. The 'only use PC' type of internet user started to diminish fast. But as handsets got cheaper and with the advent of phablet-screen size internet-optimized smartphones, the class of 'never use PC' type of 'only mobile users' shot up. Now we have those numbers. The internet user base has gone 'mobile first'. Today more than half of all internet users are the type who never use a PC and most of the rest, are the type who use both mobile and PC. So 1.8 Billion internet users only access on a mobile phone. 1.5 Billion use both a mobile and a PC (including tablet) and now only 200 million are left who never use a mobile and only use a PC (including tablet) to access the internet. This is a dramatic and rapid shift. Here is your table about internet users:
INTERNET USE BY TECHNOLOGY IN JANUARY 2017
Total Internet Users Globally . . . . . . 3.5 Billion
Internet Access Only Mobile . . . . . . 1.8 Billion
Internet Acesss PC and Mobile . . . . 1.5 Billion
Internet Access Only by PC . . . . . . 0.2 Billion
Source TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
To further show the splits, here:
MOBILE INTERNET USERS IN JANUARY 2017
Only-Mobile users (never use PC or tablet) . . . . . 1.8 Billion
Part-time PC (or tablet) Mobile Internet users . . . 1.5 Billion
Total Mobile Internet Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Billion (vs 3.5B total Internet users)
Source TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
MEDIA UNIQUE AUDIENCE
Last year I released again a ‘world first’ chart in my Almanac that you literally could not find anywhere else. It was the count of the 20 largest mass media and communications tech by reach of unique audience. So for example TV will undercount reach if you only count TV sets because a family can all share and watch one TV set. But the internet count will overcount reach because many of us will access the internet on multiple devices such as on the PC at work, and on our own smartphone and perhaps also tablet privately. So for example Facebook admits that about 11% of its total registered users are duplicates (real Facebook unique audience is less than 1.8 Billion). And here with mobile we have overcounting and undercounting. Some of us carry multiple devices, but in some parts of the world among the very poor, a single mobile phone will be shared within the family. Newspapers are shared and typically read by more than just the number of a given newspaper's 'circulation' print run. But last year I released the first-ever count of all major media. That was in the Almanac for 2016. Now for 2017 we have of course the updates to that chart. Let me share the Top 5 for you here. The largest media and communcations technologies by unique audience:
Mobile total reach is 5.9 Billion unique humans. TV comes second, with a total reach planet-wise of 5.3 Billion humans. Radio comes third reaching 4.3 Billion unique people alive globally. Fourth? Comes UNIQUE users of SMS at 4.1 Billion UNIQUE texting users (many of us use SMS on two or more accounts that is how we get from 4.1 Billion unique SMS users to 5.8 Billion total SMS accounts). Fifth? Is DVD/Blueray video player reach at 3.4 Billion unique humans.
MEDIA AND TECH REACH TOP 5 LARGEST AUDIENCES BY ACTIVE UNIQUE HUMANS
Mobile Telecoms Reach . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 B unique humans (78%)
Television Audience Reach . . . . . . . . 5.3 B unique humans (72%)
Radio Audience Reach . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 B unique humans (57%)
SMS Text Messaging Unique Users . . 4.1 B unique humans (55%)
DVD/Blueray Player Audience . . . . . . 3.4 B unique humans.(46%)
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This table may be freely shared
If you want to see how the rest of the Top 20 (all tech that have a reach of 1 Billion unique human beings or more) are ranked, like Android and Facebook and Windows and email and cable/satellite TV and various other tech relate to those numbers, get the 2017 edition of the Almanac. I will revisit this topic again later this year for a bit more detail.
ADDENDUM
Based on the vote we had for fans to pick the 3 charts they wanted me to make public out of the Almanac 2017 edition, here are the 3 charts. First up: Augmented Reality Revenues:
Augmented Reality Global Revenues reach 3.0 Billion dollars in 2016
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This chart may be freely shared
Then the second chart that readers votes for is about internet access. This chart divides the 3.5 Billion active internet users worldwide by the methods they use - when allowing for the way many use multiple devices or methods. So the totals will not 'add up to 3.5 Billion' but rather each individual measure is the 'highest number' that type of access has, out of 3.5 Billion.
Internet Access by Type (Allowing for Multiple Uses)
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This chart may be freely shared
And the third chart requested by fans, via their vote, was the count of mobile gamers. Thanks to the popularity of new titles like Pokemon Go and Super Mario Brothers, worldwide mobile gaming active users (when pre-installed games are not counted) has now hit 2.0 Billion humans or 39% of all unique human mobile phone owners now play games on their phones:
Mobile Gaming Active Users 2.0 Billion in 2016 Globally
Source: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
This chart may be freely shared
With that, lets do a short preview of the TomiAhonen Almanac 2017, I am releasing it now. It costs the same as always, only 10 Euros ie 9 UK Pounds ie 14 US Dollars. Nothing really considering how much great up-to-date statistic and information it contains. The Table of Contents for TomiAhonen Almanac 2017 edition:
Contents: TomiAhonen Almanac 2017
(has 215 pages, 107 tables and charts. Cost only 10 Euros, 9 UKP, 14 USD)
Chapter 1 - Introduction to 2017 Edition
Chapter 2 - Size of Industry
Chapter 3 - Customers
Chapter 4 - Handsets
Chapter 5 - Mobile Messaging
Chapter 6 - Mobile Internet
Chapter 7 - Mobile as Mass Media
Chapter 8 - Mobile Gaming
Chapter 9 - Mobile TV and Video
Chapter 10 - Mobile Social Networking
Chapter 11 - Mobile Payments & Mobile Money
Chapter 12 - Other Mobile Content
Chapter 13 - Smartphone Apps
Chapter 14 - Mobile Advertising and Marketing
Chapter 15 - Voice Calls
Chapter 16 - Business/Enterprise Services
Chapter 17 - Other Mobile Data
Chapter 18 - Network Infrastructure
Chapter 19 - Digital Divide
Chapter 20 - History and Milestones
Tables
Index of Mobile Leadership for 30 advanced countries
60 Major Countries
25 Countries by Most Mobile Subscribers
25 Countries with Highest Mobile Penetration Rate
20 Biggest Mobile Operator Groups
About the Author
Thats the TomiAhonen Almanac 2017 edition. Best little book about the biz you could ever hope for. All the data is updated, it has half a dozen new charts and tables, but it still costs the same tiny 10 Euros (9 UKP, 14 USD). You can buy it now and have it on your smartphone today. The unrestricted pdf file can be saved on multiple devices you own, and have it on your smartphone permanently saved (file size is only 1.3 MB so its tiny) and the screen is formatted for reading on a smartphone screen. Get the Almanac now before all your competitors have theirs. And all the data in the Almanac is of course yours free to use, you can just screen-grab the tables directly to use in your powerpoints or company presentations if you want etc. Best data package of the mobile industry by the guy who really knows the numbers. To see more about the Almanac and the page to order it, is here.
@Tomi
Android Messages will be the new default texting app Google wants you to use
http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/24/14721602/android-messages-google-rcs-universal-profile
Posted by: brushnell | February 24, 2017 at 11:36 AM