Key points from Chetan Sharma update on US and Global Mobile Data Market
August 13th, 2012
Today Chetan Sharma, prominent Wireless Consultant in US and a friend of CellStrat team, released a great summary of Mobile Data market updates from Q2 2012 quarter (some are US specific stats while others are global stats). The key points from Chetan’s note are :
- US Mobile Data market is $19.3 billion in Q2 2012. Data now accounts for 42% of US mobile industry revenues.
- In terms of Y/Y growth, Connected Devices segment grew 21%, Prepaid 12%, Wholesale 4%, and Postpaid was flat. AT&T, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon are number one respectively in these categories.
- Prepaid subscriptions exceeded 100 million for the first time in the US. This is also indicative of US’s downward economics trends. Postpaid growth is slowing in the US.
- iOS and Android are the two dominant mobile OSes. Windows Mobile may be third but with a very tiny market share.
- Samsung dominates global device unit shipments – however Apple has 70% of global mobile device profits in spite of just 5% of device market share. Samsung now leads in every major unit sale category both on the world stage as well as in the US. However, profits are a different equation where Apple overshadows its rivals like Gulliver on the Lilliput land.
- Apple iPad has 97% of global tablet profits with the remaining tablet players fighting for remaining crumbs.
- Smartphone penetration crossed 50% in the US.
- Ranking for top mobile data profits globally includes China Mobile, Apple, Verizon, AT&T, and NTT DoCoMo, in that order.
- AT&T and Verizon have launched shared data plans (a first – where two or more folks share the same data plan on a family account) in the USA.
- US continues to sell over 40% of the world’s smartphone every quarter thus making it the most attractive market for OEMs.
- The overall data consumption in the US market in 2012 is expected to exceed 2000 Petabytes or 2 Exabytes. The smartphone data consumption at some operators is averaging close to 850 MB/mo. As we move into 1GB range along with the family data plans kicking in, you can expect the data tiers to get bigger both in GBs and dollar amount.
- Globally, one sees a Mobile First approach by firms now evolving into Mobile Only approach. Leading apps and services like Facebook, Twitter, Pandora are already operating in the world where mobile is driving majority of their user engagement. Expedia, Fandango and others are seeing the early signs of migration into the mobile dominated world. Very soon, mCommerce revenues will overtake eCommerce revenues.
- Q2 2012 again saw tremendous activity in the mobile commerce and payments space with a lot of announcements from the operators, Internet players, and startups as well as the retailers and the ecommerce players. All are vying for a piece of the mobile wallet. Much more to come in the next 12 months. On the retail side, Starbucks is a player to watch as it tries to become a more active participant in the digital ecosystem.
- Race to a billion – China is first nation to cross a billion subscriptions. (I guess India is second, massive population helps of course)
You can refer to this Update from Chetan and the other content on his site at http://www.chetansharma.com/.
Chetan Sharma is also organizing his high-end mobile conference Mobile Future Forward on Sept 10th in Seattle. Highly recommended, with a great set of speakers and topics.
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