*These are severely messed-up.
*I wonder what would happen, just-suppose style, if all mobiles just evaporated overnight, the whole industry just vanished completely. Cellphone towers, all of that. Maybe we'd be in some peaceful, psychedelic, Beatles Yellow Submarine Pepperland world where everything was nostalgic and beautiful.
"June 04, 2012
"Massive Milestones in Mobile - Will These Numbers Change Your Mobile Strategy?
"In less than 12 months from now, the world will have more mobile subscriptions in use, than humans alive. That is an unprecedented milestone for any technology but it is also widely expected and is not news to the readers of this blog. (The world had 7 Billion people and 5.9 Billion mobile phone subscriptions in use by the end of 2011, today we are past 6.2 Billion mobile subscriptions already). Yes, on this blog and in my books I have chronicled the rapid rise of mobile. But what else can we expect in mobile milestones over the next few years? As I have just released my Mobile Forecast 2012-2015, there are several interesting items in it that may be useful for our readers. Lets take the ten most amazing moments coming in mobile soon.
"BY 2013 - VOICE CALLS DROP BELOW CAMERA USE
"Last year 2011 was the first year ever, that voice calls were no longer the primary use of our mobile 'phones'. SMS text messaging, when measured by total number of users, has passed voice calls globally in mobile. Now, next year 2013, we will see the second use passing voice calls - it will be our cameraphone use. Let's learn not to call it a 'mobile phone' or a 'cellphone'. (((Good idea, I'm going to try that henceforth. Stop saying phones, they're not phones. A hard habit to break but it's good mental hygiene. These web-semantic issues are important to our social paradigms.))) It is a mobile, a mobile device, but not a mobile phone. Voice calls will fall to third most used ability of our mobile gadget by next year. So yes, messaging is the primary use, and very shortly camera is the second use, voice calls fall to third.
"BY 2013 - SMARTPHONES (((stop saying phones))) SELL 1B UNITS
"Last year smartphones (((stop saying phones))) sold 486 million units globally. That was up massively in just one year, growing over 60% from year 2010 when the world saw 298 million smartphones sold. The growth curve continues. This year we will see the world buy more than 700 million smartphones. Next year, 2013, will be the first year that smartphone sales will pass 1 Billion units per year. That is a number only exceeded by the level of sales of basic mobile phones. (((Stop saying "phones."))) No other consumer electronics has ever sold 1 Billion units per year, not TVs, not DVD players, not Walkman-style portable music players, not stand-alone digital cameras, not PCs, not tablets, nothing. In fact, none of those technologies ever sold even half a billion unit per year. Only mobile phones, (((stop saying phones))) and now from next year, 2013, also smartphones will sell over 1 Billion units per year. Wow.
"BY 2013 - ONE THIRD OF PHONES (((Stop saying phones))) HAVE WIFI
"Another huge milestone, with massive impacts to the global mobile industry, is WiFi. The first WiFi enabled mobile phones (((
