Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Mobile Opportunity Continues to Grow

Some of the most common questions to me from our partners are related to statistics:  How many people text?  How many people are using the Mobile Web? How many people can view video on their mobile phones?  I wrote a bit about statistics a few months ago and much of it is still valid (Mobile is Huge and Growing - Just Look at the Numbers). However, statistics change and I thought it time to post an update.  Here are the numbers:

270 million.
This is the total number of U.S. mobile subscribers which represents 87% population. -CTIA Wireless, 2008

1 trillion. 
The total number of text messages that were sent in 2008 in the U.S. alone.  Wow! -CTIA Wireless, 2008

60 million.
The number of mobile page views served by the New York Times in April, 2009. -Beet.TV

127 million. 
This is the number of daily SMS users in the U.S.  This means that over a third of the American population has internalized text messaging as a part of their daily lives.  In fact, 203 million U.S. subscribers pay for SMS as a part of their data plans.  That’s two-thirds!

1,961.
This is the number of text messages my 17-year-old daughter sent and received last month.  That was from a standard keypad, no less, and she is truly a typical suburban teenager.  Savvy marketers out their know that she is a very important part of our country’s consumer demographic.  She barely uses email and that same month she only used 153 voice minutes!

55%.
This is the percentage of U.S. mobile subscribers who acquired a mobile device in the past 6 months that purchased a smart phone or a 3G device.  That means these people have larger, full-color screens, qwerty keypads, faster download speeds, and greater multimedia capabilities on their phones. 

Clearly, Americans intend to do more and more on their mobile devices, and experts attribute the expanded awareness of mobile content to the success of the iPhone.  With its release, the iPhone made U.S. subscribers aware of the capabilities of their mobile phones whether they had an iPhone or not.  Suddenly, people took a second look at their phones (even standard flip phones) and began discovering a great deal of existing functionality that they had not used yet.  Many discovered they’d had Mobile Web access the whole time.

95 million.
Speaking of Mobile Web access, this is the number of mobile subscribers who are paying for mobile Internet access as of July ‘08.  This statistic is rather dated so I would safely assume we’ve cracked 100 million by now.  In addition, ComScore reported in March that 63.2 million Americans accessed the Mobile Internet at least once per month—a near doubling since the same time last year.  More than a third of these subscribers access the Mobile Internet multiple times per day and represents a 107% growth since last year.  Another third access the Mobile Web at least weekly. 

91 million
This is the number of mobile subscribers with a video-capable phone as of Q1 2008.  As of this writing it is Q2 2009.

So what do these numbers mean? 
Simply put, it means that the demand for mobile content is increasing.  Similar to the way we expect immediate access to information when we sit in front of our computers, this expectation is spread wherever there is a mobile phone.  That means everywhere.

For business, this means that mobile is a big deal and that it must be part of an overall marketing strategy.

 

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