Japan accounts for 59% of mobile internet usage worldwide!
An interesting
paper from The International University of Japan published earlier this year has some interesting stats on mobile internet usage. These data are always hard to find reliably as they are very precious and sensitive from an MNO point of view. Anyway to summarise some key findings:
- more than 1.5 billion mobile users worldwide
- 25 percent of the world's population owned a mobile phone in June 2004
- this generated in excess of $1.5 trillion in service revenues
- however (here it comes) only a small sub-segment of this population subscribed to or used the mobile internet.
- as of January 2004, there were 115 million mobile data subscribers globally who generated in excess of US$61 billion within the entire 2004 calendar year
- while Japan and three of its Asia Pacific neighbors comprised
only 9 percent of the world's mobile subscriber base, Japan alone represented 59 percent of the world's mobile data subscribers as of January 2004
So while these figures are from last year as we enter 2006 I don't think we in Europe can afford to be complacent about the challenge facing the mobile internet industry here.
As always I think the figures in Europe are in reality worse. Thsi is because in this research mobile internet is defined as:
"data-driven usage of a mobile network either for text communications or mobile content or service access". In other words texting an e-mail are included as part of the greater mobile internet. The real figure we need is actual consumption of pure mobile data content services and these data are even harder to find.
i-mode vs O2 Active - the debate rages on
Excellent
blog report from Tom Hume on a public i-mode workshop held in UK last week.
Some very interesting statistics on the O2 active vs I-mode debate.
I quote the most interesting stuff from Tom's Blog directly below with the disclaimer being that this is obviously "a quote of a quote" . That is the comments are attributed to Jag Minhas: Chief Architect for Data Products, O2 but the interpretation is from Tom Hume.
"WAP has been more successful in the UK than in other markets across
Europe. O2 Active generates 50% of all non-SMS data traffic in the UK,
with 1b page impressions pcm.
O2 active: youth, mix CP/operator branded, some paid-for content,
event-driven billing. Brand experience. No control over specs of
devices.
I-mode: mass market, multiple brands/category, no paid-for content,
subscription model. Supermarket-like experience. Validated devices.
86/14 split which accounts for a coverage for risk and fraud which
doesn't existing in Japan (?)
I-mode will not replace O2 Active. O2 Active is important right now
because of the scarcity of devices which support I-mode. I-mode is the
"next step". This is a very consistent story coming out of O2 at the
moment, but I have to confess I'm sceptical: having 2 mobile Internet
services must be confusing to a customer-base who are only beginning
to get the concept in the first place...??" End of quote.
Excellent
blog report from Tom Hume on a public i-mode workshop held in UK last week.
Some very interesting statistics on the O2 active vs I-mode debate.
I quote the most interesting stuff from Tom's Blog directly below with the disclaimer being that this is obviously "a quote of a quote" . That is the comments are attributed to Jag Minhas: Chief Architect for Data Products, O2 but the interpretation is from Tom Hume.
"WAP has been more successful in the UK than in other markets across
Europe. O2 Active generates 50% of all non-SMS data traffic in the UK,
with 1b page impressions pcm.
O2 active: youth, mix CP/operator branded, some paid-for content,
event-driven billing. Brand experience. No control over specs of
devices.
I-mode: mass market, multiple brands/category, no paid-for content,
subscription model. Supermarket-like experience. Validated devices.
86/14 split which accounts for a coverage for risk and fraud which
doesn't existing in Japan (?)
I-mode will not replace O2 Active. O2 Active is important right now
because of the scarcity of devices which support I-mode. I-mode is the
"next step". This is a very consistent story coming out of O2 at the
moment, but I have to confess I'm sceptical: having 2 mobile Internet
services must be confusing to a customer-base who are only beginning
to get the concept in the first place...??" End of quote.
Build your own GSM handset or the 90 euro laptop?
Some hackers (ethical I presume) in US have designed a kit so you can
build your own GSM mobile. It is built around the linux
gumstix and GM862 platform and costs around USD400 to build. Gumstix is so called because the footprint is that of a packet of chewing gum. Of course there are problems registering the IMEI on the network even with a valid SIM but a very interesting development nonetheless.
The designers
Patel and Seetharam are ex MIT which ties in nicely with the
Media Lab 100 dollar laptop.
Begs the question: perhaps children in Africa would be better with an even cheaper internet ready mobile than a laptop that is not networked? On second thoughts perhaps each 100 dollars would be better spent on eliminating malaria or HIV.
Nokia's mobile search application
Nokia have launched an interesting mobile search application available for free download
here.
The fact that Nokia felt it necessary to develop a special application shows two things:
- search is important on a mobile device
- current browser search capability is not sufficient
Unfortunately this app has a number of limitations:
- symbian app so only works on a limited number of handsets
- the search itself is limited to certain categories including images and location search.
In conclusion good to see Nokia embracing the challenge of mobile search and understanding that it is very different and separate from fixed search. This is in contrast to some previous attempts by Google et al. to try and shoehorn fixed browser search into the tiny screen.
