The Five Billion Phone World Analyzed

LET'S GO MAD
So I have told you what are the numbers 5 Billion, 4 Billion, 3 Billion and 1 Billion. It leaves us with the 2 Billion number. What might that be?

The world has now passed the point, where two Billion of us have received an advertisement on our mobile phone. [So 'mAd' is mobile advertising obviously]. Yes, out of all mobile phone subscribers its 'only' 40% but the gigantic numbers in mobile hide enormous scale. Remember those television sets? 1.6 Billion. And not all TV channels worldwide broadcast advertisements. Yes, 1.2 Billion PCs exist but less than that are connected to the internet, so less than 1.2 Billion personal computers will be able to receive ads via the internet. But 2 Billion of us have received ads on our phones, essentially twice as many as have seen an ad on a PC.

How's that with newspapers? The worldwide circulation of newspapers, free and paid, was under 480 million last year [and newspapers are dropping dead left and right, in the tough economic conditions worldwide]. So 4 times more people receive ads delivered into their pockets, than onto their daily newspapers. Wow. Are you impressed with the hot new Apple iPad? It sold 3 million units in its first quarter. Let's assume Apple does that rate for a year, and the world would have about 12 million iPads in use next year at this time. How much bigger is 'real' mobile advertising, delivered to 'real' mobile phones? Try 167 times bigger - this a year from now, if we assume awesome iPad growth rates [mobile advertising reach is 650 times bigger than total installed base of iPads today.]

Two Billion people on the planet receive ads onto their phones. That's 40% of all mobile phone subscribers. Its 3 out of every 10 people alive on the planet! So if you thought it was impressive that mobile advertising was the only form of advertising to actually grow revenues in the economic crash when all other advertising forms declined; and last year that mobile advertising grew by 70% in revenues - you aren't seen nothing yet. The world's most personal gadget, the world's most pervasive technology and the world's most beloved device - our mobile phone - is now also a powerful advertising and marketing platform, reaching further than the PC based internet, or television or newspapers. Like I say, the mobile is the last thing we see before we fall asleep, and the first thing we see when we wake up. Just this past week we learned that in the UK, the youth who sleep with their Blackberries under their pillows, have started to call the BB, the Blackberry, as their 'Baby'. Sleeping with the Baby. Yes. BB. Baby. Blackberry. Pretty cool.

For anyone wanting to reference the numbers - all numbers, facts and stats mentioned in this analysis, that was not separately credited, is based on the TomiAhonen Almanac 2010, where obviously some statistics have been now updated for August 2010 levels. So please feel free to reference any of the numbers mentioned here and provide a link to this analysis if you want. You do not need to ask permission to republish any of the stats or facts.

A COUPLE OF PLUGS
First, I want to mention the podcast we do monthly with Peggy Ann Salz at the M-Search Groove. My monthly podcast is about the latest stories related to the statistics of the mobile industry. It's a short nice peppy chat with Peggy about what's hot in mobile, so if you want more on the numbers of the industry [and its free] this is a good place to visit monthly.

Then we have our 7th Mass Media course at Oxford University again coming up in mid October, in Oxford, England. The course is only 2 days in length, an 'executive' course with the media and mobile focus, looking a lot at the consumers, the media, the advertising etc plus obviously 7th Mass Media special issues, like the myths in mobile, and the unique benefits we have in mobile to deliver services that even other digital platforms like the PC based internet, digital TV, DVDs etc cannot deliver. The course lecturers are David Cushman, Alan Moore and me, and the course runs Oct 12-13. If you wanted to 'really' know this industry, this is the ultimate course with us, the three authors who have together published probably more on these topics than anyone else. Please see the Oxford University website for course outline and more info including booking info.

For those who want a two-page handy guide on the main numbers for the mobile industry, please remember my free 'Cheat Sheet' is always available. To get the PDF file emailed to you, just send me an email to tomi [at] tomiahonen [dot] com.

And for those who want a more thorough set of stats and numbers and charts and facts on the mobile industry, the TomiAhonen Almanac 2010 is the best value at only 9.99 Euros, giving you 184 pages with 84 charts and tables, with all the facts you ever wanted to know about mobile today, from handsets to networks to consumers to services to apps to revenues to profits to the digital divide. Best of all, the PDF format eBook/mBook is formatted for the small screen, so you can carry all the industry numbers in your pocket anywhere, right on your smartphone [or laptop, Kindle, iPad etc]. To see sample pages including several of the actual tables and charts, see the ordering pages for the TomiAhonen Almanac 2010 [this Almanac is not sold anywhere else, not on Amazon or any other bookseller].