*What a strange world we live in now. All about billions of people with lozenges in their hands.
(…)
MILESTONES COMING IN 2015
"This year sees several big milestones we will pass. The mobile handset industry will have its first ever year selling 2 Billion mobile phones (most of them are now smartphones). No consumer tech has ever had that kind of sales levels, not TVs, not PCs, not gaming consoles, not digital cameras, not FM radios, etc. Two Billion sold per year. Thats 5 million phones sold every single day of every week, Saturdays and Sundays included, all the way through all holidays. Thats this industry!
"Talking about those handsets and the older PC industry. This year sees the installed base of Android based smartphones grow past 2 Billion in use. Thats more yes than all personal computers including tablets, on all operating systems they use (mostly Windows obviously). This year sees the overall handset (dumbphone and smartphone) installed base pass the level where half are operated by touch-screen (as many 'featurephones' are also touch-screen operated like the Nokia Asha series of featurephones/dumbphones).
"And if you are into the smartphone apps industry (mostly a barren desert where if you don't do games, you really won't make much money) then yes, this year we pass the level where 2 Billion people download apps to smartphones. That may seem like a big number until you understand the full mobile industry. Its far smaller than say mobile internet users or cameraphone users or MMS users or gosh, SMS text messaging users. But yeah, nice number, 2 Billion, why not. (for those not knowing the math behind apps, yes its a hopeless barren desert for anyone who isn't a game developer and game developers of course only have a 1 in 10 chance of succeeding. Large user numbers is not much money in apps).
"MILESTONES COMING IN 2016
"Next up: next year. By 2016 we will see more milestones. For example 3 Billion people will be using mobile search. Yeah. Today there are exactly 3 Billion internet users (and not all of them use search). But by the end of next year, just search users, on mobile, will pass the 3 Billion level. And you doubted Google's interest in mobile, haha.. Its like I teach in my workshops around the world, The Truth Is In The Pocket. At the end of next year 50% of all phones in use on the planet are smartphones.
"The balance of SMS text messaging revenues reaches the tipping point, as person-to-person messaging keeps shifting to 'OTT' service providers like Whatsapp, in 2016, half of total SMS revenues worldwide will come from 'premium SMS' ie A2P and P2A (Application to Person, and vice versa) services. What do I mean? Vote for American Idol on TV, get a security code on a web service, pay for a drink on a vending machine, get an airline boarding pass, open a public pay toilet door, get a bus ticket, send a donation to a charity, make a payment, etc etc etc. Oh, and advertising of course, coupons and offers. Premium SMS. Yes, its already twice as big as 'smartphone apps' today and by 2016 premium SMS will be more than half of total SMS revenues globally. And meanwhile back to those phones, the cameraphone active user base hits 5 Billion next year. Yeah, death to the stand-alone camera business.... (BTW the only place on the planet that gives cameraphone and digital camera stats and digital photography stats is my blog, here)
"MORE MILESTONES IN 2017
"So lets move to 2017. What do we see there? Smartphone sales hit 2 Billion units per year. Yes. Smartphones. Two billion. And PCs only sell about 500 million per year (if tablets like the iPad are included) or 300 million (if tablets are not included). Both PC and tablet sales have stopped growing in any meaningful way, are essentially flat from now on. But smartphone sales, well, they were 1 Billion in 2013 (990 million actually). And will be double that just four years later, in 2017. What a lovely industry if numbers here double every four years haha...
"What do we do with our mobiles then? Well, 2017 becomes the first year when mobile 'data' revenues exceed mobile voice revenues globally. Thats a nice shift for us and opens massive opportunities. Talking of those massive opportunities, OTT and SMS. 2017 is the year when OTT instant messaging platforms reach a total user base of 2.7 Billion. Obviously that is not Whatsapp which will be a part of that only. That number, 2.7 Billion again may sound big but in the context of mobile messaging, it really isn't. It is only the half-way point to SMS active user base in 2017 (which will be down a bit from its peak, and be 5.4 Billion active SMS text messaging users in 2017). And to be very clear, Whatsapp today is the most used OTT instant messaging platform that has 700 million users. It is only 1/8 the size of the active user base of SMS text messaging today at 5.6 Billion. Or to put it another way, if you take the total user base of the biggest OTT provider in messaging, Whatsapp, then SMS is merely 8 times larger today. By 2017, maybe SMS will by then only be about 3 or 4 times bigger...
"And one more user behavior bit. Internet. Most internet users today access the internet part of the time on a PC (or tablet) and part of the time on a mobile phone (usually smartphone). By 2017, half of the total global internet user base never uses a PC, and accesses the internet only on a mobile. Can you see now why all the majors of the industry are preaching 'mobile first' strategies?
"MILESTONES COMING IN 2018
"So finally the last year of the Forecast period. What can we look forward to in 2018? The year brings a big milestone for WiFi, as half of all phones in use that year will support WiFi. The average sales price of smartphones falls below 200 dollars in 2018 for the first time ever (with plenty of cheap basic smartphones selling for under 50 dollars but of course also premium smartphones like the iPhones and Galaxies and Xperias will sell in the near 1,000 dollar price levels, so the average is just below 200 dollars, as far more of the cheap phones sell than the very expensive ones).
"Android reaches 3 Billion active users just on smartphones (and plenty more on tablets and ultrabooks etc). And of that OS war, I predict in 2018 the market share of new smartphones sold will be Android 82%, iOS is second with 10% and Tizen third with 4%. Firefox has a tiny slice as does Blackberry. Windows if not dead is essentially dead for all practical purposes in smartphones (but Windows of course still holds a big slice of the far smaller PC market even then).
"Thats a highlights preview of the next four years. All data in this blog may be freely quoted and used, please list the source as: TomiAhonen Mobile Forecast 2014-2018 and if you can, please do include a link to this blog for more info…."
