The Mobile Web in the Rest of the World

The Great Rise of the Mobile Web When you think of the mobile internet, you probably conjure to mind a Starbucks sipping yuppie banging away on their iPhone 4 on the Muni in San Francisco. Think again. The mobile web is big in the West, everyone knows that, but it is much more important in the developing world. Just how much more? Let's take a look. 2010: 3,81% of world web usage is mobile. According to the BBC, there are some 5 billion mobile phone users [2010] of which 31% access the web on their phones. In the world, share of web usage that is mobile runs as follows: Europe North America 1,81% 4,71% Asia 6,10% Africa 5,81% South America Indonesia Oceania/ Cambodia 1,46% Australia Turkmenistan 2,88% Bangladesh 15% Sudan 29% 22% Chad Nigeria Kenya 25% 20% In the more developed countries, mobile web consumption is lower com- pared to regular accessing of the internet as more people have access to computers, and that access speed allows the loading of more pageviews, skewing the 'usage’ data towards internet usage not through mobile de- vices. In other words, you might access 50 pages online in the same time that it takes you to get through 5 on your mobile, forcing the percent usage data down for what may be an underrepresented number of mobile internet users. So then, how many people are actually online using mobile versus 'normal' internet? According to the legendary May Meeker within 5 years there will be more mobile than traditional internet users: Global Mobile vs. Desktop Internet User Projection, 2007 - 2015E 2,000 1,600 1,200 800 - Mobile Internet Users Desktop Internet Users 400 2007E 2008E 2009E 2010E 2011E 2012E 2013E 2014E 2015E In other words, the mobile trends that we are seeing seem to not be slowing down. How quickly is the mobile web growing around the world? According to Quantcast, in 2009 global mobile internet access grew 148% year over year. What about in Asia, where mobile penetration is highest? According to Opera, from July 2009 to July 2010, in the top 10 mobile internet using Asian countries, total accessed pageviews among Opera Mini [mobile] users grew 238%. Sources: http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/11/23/mobile-web-usage-highest-in-asia-and-africa/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10569081 [http://www.yankeegroup.com/pressReleaseDetail.do?actionType=getDetailPressRelease&ID=2467 http://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/ http://www.opera.com/smw/2010/07/ THE NEXT WEB Internet Users (MM)