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2012 Mobile Global Market Update from Chetan Sharma Consulting

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

Chetan Sharma, a long-time and well respected voice in mobile, has recently published a report which paints a global picture of what’s happening in mobile not just in relation to itself, but also in relation to other large-scale trends and appliances which seem normal to many of us. The big picture summary of this report paints an interesting picture not just for mobile and connected spaces, but how economic factors will play a part in mobile as an avenue for ministry:

The global mobile industry is the most vibrant and fastest growing industry. We expect the total revenue in the industry to touch approximately $1.5 Trillion in 2012 with mobile data representing 28% of the mix. Mobile data services revenue stood at 33%. Global Mobile Data revenues eclipsed $300 Billion for the first time in 2011. It is also the first year in which non-messaging data revenues will make up the majority of the overall global data revenues at 53%.
 
By the end of 2011, the global subscriptions exceeded 6 Billion. The first 1 billion took over 20 years and this last one took only 15 months. The primary growth drivers are India and China which are cumulatively adding 75M new subs every quarter. China became the first country to eclipse the 1 billion mark in March 2012. India is likely to arrive at the milestone by early 2013.
 
Smartphones are driving tremendous growth around the globe. Amongst the major markets, US leads with 69% sales. The global figure stands at approximately 32%. Some operators expect 90-95% of their device sales to be smartphones in 2012. In terms of the actual smartphone penetration, we expect the US market to eclipse the 50% mark in 2012.
 
China leads in the number of subs but US dominates in both total and data revenue. A number of emerging nations are now in top 10 – Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico while once dominant – Korea, UK, Italy, Germany have dropped off or slipped in rankings.

A few of the facts highlighted in this report include

Total Global Subscriptions to exceed 7 Billion in early 2013
– China exceeds 1 Billion, India 950 Million. Subscriber growth is in Asia, Revenue growth is in Asia+North America
China and India represent 27% of subscriptions but only 12% of the global service revenues
– US represents only 6% of the subscriptions but 21% of the global service revenues, 26% of the data revenues, and 27% of the global CAPEX
Mobile Devices are now exceeding traditional computers in unit sales + revenue
– 70% of the device sales in the US are now smartphones. Device Replacement cycle is shrinking
Samsung and Apple now account for 50% of the smartphone unit share and 90% of the profit share
– Difficult environment for other OEMs esp. when ZTE and Huawei are coming strong from the bottom. It will be difficult for pure play device OEMs to survive long-term
Tablets (iPads) has created a new computing paradigm that is having a significant impact on commerce, content consumption, and developer investments
– Apple will continue to dominate the segment and iOS will be the leading OS for the segment. Amazon, ZTE, Huawei, to chip away at the sub-$200 tier.

To read this report in detail, visit Chetan Sharma Consulting’s website, where there is a PDF downloadable version of this report complete with graphics and other source data useful for analyzing this data.

Once you have gone through it, does anything stick out for you? Does any of the data presented alter your plans or current activities in mobile? 

View our complete listing of Resources and Statistics

 

Tags: Chetan Sharma, global trends, metrics, mobile in analytics, Mobile in Analytics/Marketing/Development, smartphones, statistics, subscriptions, tablets
Posted in Devices and Software, Future Trends | No Comments »

Don’t Forget the Non-Smartphone Folks

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

GetJar Screenshot for upcoming @mobileminmag article - Share on OviThinking about it some, yesterday’s post might have come across as if we were putting ebooks, literacy, and that neat community experiment only inside the frame of smartphones. Sure seems like it doesn’t it? Well, no. Everyone can do that, and your mobile efforts should take into account the capabilities of as many mobile devices as possible when you do those kinds of things.

And I know the refrain, many folks talking things up in mobile ministry have a working experience of what’s in their pockets – and that is often a smartphone. A random survey of just a few folks from the Mobile Ministry Forum pointed to just that. And it doesn’t mean that we are limited to knowing what’s in our pockets. Not everyone has had my experience of being a mobile device reviewer, or owning more than two mobile devices for most of their mobile life. So, There’s some forgiveness that has to be had when we do craft mobile solutions and it sounds like it only meets the needs of the most affluent amongst us.

You don’t see non-smartphones around you (I’ve heard that too)? So, whom are you around? Did you know that globally that about 30% of the mobile phones sold in the last year were smartphones – and that’s out of a total of 1.2 billion mobiles sold (Tomi Ahonen stats, Cellular News stats, Taipei Times). Or, if you are in the USA, you might say “yea, but it doesn’t look like that when I see on TV, in the cafe, etc. that so many have them.” You are right in some respect, of the mobiles sold in the USA, (I think we are just about at) 50% are smartphones (across the national carriers), and rarely are these sold with those persons that use pre-paid accounts (Nielsen). So, if you aren’t seeing them, there’s a question of context, half of the people you interact with will probably not have a smartphone. If you aren’t seeing that, you’ve got to check your associations.

And I know that those who work with/for content creators and media companies that smartphones are a much easier target. The browsers are better, there’s an app for that (grrr), and folks are willing to often flaunt that new device with a nifty case or sound. That’s no excuse though to just target them. We covered Phone Publish last month which is able to get content suitable for the smaller screened, lower-speced, non-smartphone folks, without keeping the content away from them (designing the user experience is harder, I’ll admit that much too). 

You want to push apps to everyone, check out GetJar. Get Jar is how many of us who have been doing mobile longer than the last half-decade are familiar with the concept of “app store.” You go to the site on your device, and it recognizes the device you are using and just shows the content that’s compatible with it. Simple right? If you follow the specs for the majority of devices which can download Java/Java-similar applications, then you’ve got a means to get in on those devices. There are other app stores (Nokia Store, Bada Store, etc.), but just wanted to hit on that one since it really does endeavor to hit the most devices.

Some stats are showing that – at least in some regions – that people are using mobile over PCs to get online. So, that really cool developer who wants to do something based on that pretty 22in monitor, tell them to take a few steps back. Concepts like responsive design, mobile website transcoding, etc. need to be looked at just as much as you observe that client requirement of “make it look good on my screen first.”

And if those folks aren’t able to get online, is your mobile strategy doing SMS (over 90% of mobiles are capable of doing text, nearly as many do multimedia (MMS) messages)? What about memory card swapping? Look back at that idea about a book fair, notice how we have a central librarian laptop that is able to serve those devices which might not have the ability to get content via WiFi, Bluetooth, or swapping memory cards. Your church might have gone mobile, but folks can’t go with you if they can’t get what you’ve moved forward with (Pew Internet, via Textually).

So, don’t forget folks who aren’t using what’s in your pocket. Its easy to do (trust me, personal experience like crazy here). You do your witness of the effects of the Gospel when you love on all of your brothers, not just those with the buttons and trinkets that look like you (1 Cor 1-3).

 

Tags: apps, Bluetooth, downloads, feature phones, memory cards, mobile in analytics, Mobile in Analytics/Marketing/Development, mobile in development, mobile in media, mobile in missions/evangelism, mobile in personal/moment, P2P, Phone Publish, smartphones, WiFi
Posted in Devices and Software | No Comments »

Splashtop Remote, Bible Library Servers, and Mobile Accessibility

Friday, January 20th, 2012


Last month, we had a post from LaRosa Johnson talking about his new Asus Transformer Android tablet computer and how he planned to use it work and Biblical studies. Of the latter, he was doing something pretty neat in that he would use the tablet to remotely log into his laptop to be able to use the desktop Bible software packages that he has there. We’ve found another example of this over at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools where instead of a tablet, we’ve got an Android smartphone, and the software being used is SplashTop Remote Desktop. Here’s a snippet of that experience:

In the past I have used Logmein for remote access to the various family computers I maintain. Even the basic free account lets me take over a computer and run programs on it. It works great and is secure. I will continue to use it for such maintenance tasks. Note that this can work the other way around, and what a program like this allows me to do is run programs that are on my home system from any other computer. As long as I have my home system on and Logmein enabled, I can remotely connect to my home system and use my installed programs like BibleWorks or Logos. I’ve also used it to grab files I’ve forgotten on my home computer when I’m at school. (I now use SugarSync to keep my systems all in sync via the cloud. It’s a wonderful thing.) It’s a little slow to use Logmein this way, but it works. What this also means is that I can use the web browser on my smartphone and see BibleWorks on my phone. I say “see,” because without the use of a mouse on my phone, I really can’t do too much. Logmein does have an Android app ($29), but I just don’t use it that much, especially on my phone, to buy it.

Read the rest of BibleWorks and Logos on Android (sort of…) at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools.

Now, this sounds like something that would be only useful in areas where wireless bandwidth is accessible and there’s some technological savy on the part of the person putting this together. But, I can’t help thinking that at some level, it would make a lot of sense to see something like Bibleworks, Logos, etc. offered in a “server package” where you purchase “seats” and those authenticate mobile devices are able to use it. This would be no different than what we see with CRM, task management, Intranet, and office productivity suites (Salesforce, Basecamp, SharePoint, and Google Apps to name a few).

A difference in the application here though would need to be that Bible software suites doing this would want to explore being usable in different streams. For example, something like having the BibleWorks install and UI sitting on a Seagate GoFlex Satellite, with anyone accessing that hard drive/access point being able to “see/read” BibleWorks on their device, but it is being served from that single point. There’d also be something like Logos’ Biblia that could be explored where a license for an organization could make available to authenticated seats some measure of the Logos library. Or, finally we could see the BibleWorks/Olive Tree/Logos/etc. move to a model of use where instead of purchasing and downloading a product, that people and organizations purchase access to a virtual desktop of sorts which would allow them (a) access to the library and (b) multiple devices which can access it per use account. Now that I’m thinking about it, it would be really neat if I could recreate the mobile web server and then host the bible project I’m working on from it… uhmmm

In whatever case, its pretty neat to see these kinds of access choices taken when it comes to Bible software. We shouldn’t limit mobile just to “what’s designed for the small screen” when its clearly possible for that small screen to access a bit more. What is worth being explored though is how we can better enable mobile to be a key to a content library, whether or not those with the devices have the financial means to access the content or not.

 

Tags: accessibility, Android, Asus Transformer, BibleWorks, Biblia, LogMeIn, Logos, mobile in development, mobile in media, mobile in moment, mobile in personal, mobile in personal/moment, Olive Tree, remote access, servers, smartphones, Splashtop Remote Desktop, tablets
Posted in Devices and Software | No Comments »

Lessons Learned from the OLPC Project

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

OLPC v1Over at the NY Times, I took in a reading about the OLPC Project and some stumbles and successes that it has had. One of the more interesting things about that project, at least in light of the small summary that the NYT offers, is that for all of the success that it didn’t have in terms of shipments, it has had number of smaller (many times unintended) victories. Let’s look at a few lessons and glean some understanding (Proverbs 4:6-8):

…To make a very long, very complicated story short, since the initial frenzy subsided, OLPC has concentrated on the logistics of shipping a total of 2.3 million laptops to some 45 countries. It has also worked on ways to improve the performance and maintenance of those machines, and on developing a new tablet computer, the XO-3, which it hopes to introduce late next year…

Logistics planning and execution is important: One of the issues that we ran into when walking through the planning stages for the Kiosk Evangelism Project is that while we were directed for the goals of the program, understanding the issues on the ground to distribute content, training, and administrative support were a lot harder to notch. Ideally, such issues are best solved not on the run but with mind of persons and organizations who are skilled in those functions.

…OLPC’s machines have also proved effective when used on a smaller scale. “We’ve deployed them in a couple of schools with great results,” said Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, a global volunteer network, which specializes on development and disaster relief projects, although he added that other schools preferred to use traditional PCs…

Small scale, predispositions to other behaviors/methods: Its not an accident that investing technological (tools) changes into a culture can be challenge. Don’t be afraid to take steps back from a larger implementation so that you can see some more detailed usages from smaller groups. In going to that smaller-deployment/implementation route, you will notice that behavioral/cultural preferences might arise for or against your efforts. With small scale, you can address this. If the scale is large, you might get that kind of push-back and then refactor your entire plan, when only a small section needs to be addressed.

…Similarly, the praise for the design of OLPC’s cute little laptop has helped the computer industry to develop a lucrative new global market for tablets and other small computers…

Unintended market effects: It wasn’t the intention of the OLPC project to create a new cottage industry (low-cost, accessible netbooks came expressly from the successes that the OLPC Project was making in non-Windows/Intel streams). But, it not just had the effect of opening up new usages, but spreading that usage’s best points (better device design, power efficiency gains, lower prices, etc.) to the larger notebook/PC market – effectively raising the bar for what it is we purchase. Your project might cause similar. Resist the urge to try and control those effects. If anything, be more streadfast towards your goals so that the baramometer of success for those other market effects has its own bar to reach.

…That said, OLPC has encountered difficulties, and its designers have had to modify the original laptops since they went into daily use in schools. The shiny plastic on the case was replaced by a tougher rubberized material. The keyboard was strengthened with a steel plate, and its lights removed to reduce energy consumption. OLPC had to add little feet to the machines used in countries like Nigeria, where school desks tended to be slanted. It has also trained local technicians to repair the laptops, rather than running a centralized maintenance program…

Planning is good; itertative changes is better: One of the more frustrating moments in any project is when you’ve had some kind of change in the roadmap. Maybe that’s a move to another tool, another type of final project, or even the additon of pieces which you didn’t origianlly see. For instance, in that same Kiosk Evangelism Project referenced above, before settling on a Wi-Fi Router/HD combo device, we’d looked at traditional ATM-like kiosks, web distribution, several types of content management approaches, and even using a mobile as a server to distribute the content. Each of those pieces were iterations to the current implementation of the project, and had to be gone through, even if they weren’t all within the original plan for that project.

Some years ago, we opined that the OLPC Project could be a beneficial tech-mission engagement. We’ve since talked about that kind of opportunity amongst others. If that were an opportunity taken on, there would have been these challeges and lessons learned. There would have been some notable successes. And probably a few failures. But, it would have produced the kind of understanding that – when fed back to the rest of the Body – would have created some needed wisdom points.

 

Tags: education, laptop, learning, mobility, netbook, OLPC, smartphones, sustainability, tech
Posted in Devices and Software | No Comments »

Difference Between Smartphones and Feature Phones

Monday, January 17th, 2011

N97 vs N8 Dial Screens - Share on OviIn a lead-up to reading the Tomi Ahonen Phone Book that we told you would be a good holiday wad/gift, also check out one of the latest posts at his site Communities Dominate Brands where he speaks about the differences between smartphones and feature phones. Here’s a snippet:

The PC industry sells a little over 300 million PCs this year. That includes all desktops, laptops, notebooks, netbooks and the tablet PCs like the iPad and Kindle. A little over 300 million sold per year. Similarly television sets sell in that scale, about 300 million per year. And DVD players sell in the 250 million range annually. These are the global giants in electronics, the others of our favorite gadgets, like videogaming consoles or digital cameras or MP3 players like the iPod, sell in far smaller numbers per year. Except for one gadget. The mobile phone. The world sees sales of 1.37 Billion mobile phones sold in just this past year! You see why I am so excited about this industry? Just smartphones alone will sell very close to 300 million units this year, and yes, next year more smartphones will be sold than all types of personal computers, combined.

Read the rest at Communities Dominate Brands.

We are going to work on doing a better job of addressing the difference in approaches when these two types of mobile devices are considered. Take for example the recent changes to the Mobile Bible Apps page, smartphones have gotten a good bit of attention, but there’s much more that can and should be done for feature phones (Java/Non-Smartphones). Stay tuned.

 

Tags: Communities Dominate Brands, feature phones, metrics, smartphones, stats, Tomi Ahonen
Posted in Devices and Software | No Comments »

5 Further Ways to Define Mobile Ministry

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Photo of a Dictionary showing the word 'dictionary' via Kingdom of StyleAfter a number of conversations, further readings, and a excellent mobile ministry forum (report coming as soon as I slow down), there’s still this lingering feeling that the definition port forth here towards what is mobile ministry while not bad, just might not have gone far enough.

So, in the spirit of how this initiative is run, I want to put out a refreshed subset of that definition that I’ve been sitting on. It is one part just trying to get into a place of better understanding how to best apply a definition, but also lead towards developing and finding the research/case studies that support mobile ministry as an effective tool.

For a refresher, here’s the definition:

Mobile ministry is the skillful use and application of computer technology classified as mobile for the context of fulfilling the Christian (religious?) designation of forwarding the proclamation of the key ideals and history of the faith, following form to and innovating on top of cultural and faith traditions within applied contexts.

And here’s what I’ve been sitting on:

  • Mobile in missions: contextualizing Gospel messages; business as mission opportunities; technology in politics/global conversations
  • Mobile in Media: specifications around video/audio/text engagements; mobile applications alongside broadcast channels; mobile service development/infrastructure concerns
  • Mobile in discipleship/education: curriculum development; special education; educational explorations (OLPC-like initiatives)
  • Mobile Marketing/Analytics: SEO; security and access; local media channel development; mobile applications alongside and independent of broadcast channels
  • Spiritual implications of connected spaces: theological constraints/precedents; directions for educators/parents/local communities; psychological/cultural effects of mobile vs other personal/connected technology media elements
  • Mobile in Moment: use of connected services and applications; SMS/MMS; effects of and effects towards social and linear networks; personal use; theological constraints/precedents

So, in looking at mobile ministry as a tool, practice, or context, its becoming clear that how mobile is being defined determines its best application.

With that said, do you see any areas here where the Body is already equipped to move quickly into mobile? Or, do you see gaps that need to be addressed, before mobile ministry is regarded as wholly beneficial?

 

Tags: application, applications, church, definition of mobile ministry, discipleship, engagement, mobility, resources, smartphones, SMS
Posted in Commentary | No Comments »

What is Mobile Ministry

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

In one of the recent conversations that I was around (about the kiosk), we talked about how ventures like MMM would do well to be certified – it would add validity to the effort around this site and the perceptions towards mobility and mobile ministry. Thing is, mobile ministry isn’t something that you can be certified in (yet) – frankly speaking, it isn’t old enough for there to be sufficient best practices and/or innovations above those.

And yet, I (and some others) sense this need and therefore, we’ve got to define what mobile ministry is, what are the key applications, and what are its clear implications. This post will sit as MMM‘s re-introduction to the public conversations on this topic.

A Working Definition
Mobile ministry is the skillful use and application of computer technology classified as mobile for the context of fulfilling the Christian (religious?) designation of forwarding the proclamation of the key ideals and history of the faith, following form to and innovating on top of cultural and faith traditions within applied contexts.

Mobile [technology] can defined as:

personal computing use that is defined by time, task, and spatial relationships, and is not limited to a device which maintains a wired connection; behavior of use is not limited to non-moving contexts; viewport of use is established by a 1:1 ratio of device/service and user.

Another way to look at this definition is to look at these specific mobile characteristics of mobile technology as identified here:

  1. Mobile is the first personal mass media
  2. Mobile is permanently carried
  3. Mobile is always-on
  4. Mobile has a built-in payment mechanism
  5. Mobile is available at the point of creative inspiration
  6. Mobile has the most accurate audience measurement
  7. Mobile captures the social context of media consumption
  8. Mobile allows augmented reality to be used in media

via Tomi Ahonen, Communities Dominate Brands

This differs from what we commonly hear about mobile. The market definition of mobile is any device that contains wireless communication capabilities (cellular or IP) and is designed around a viewport (screen) of less than 5in. This cosigns mobile into a personal computing context that both magnifies the characteristics, and presents the framework in which to approach mobile for service/life application.

Working Applications of this Definition
With this definition in mind, we can start looking at contexts in which this action of ministry (sharing and multiplying faith experiences) happens. Here are some of these contexts (as defined by MMM‘s case report categories):

  • Short Messages: SMS (text messaging) and MMS (multimedia messaging)
  • Long Messages: email, mobile web, mobile applications
  • Social Networking
  • Multimedia
  • Evangelism
  • Analysis and Metrics
  • Language Development
  • Communication Strategies/Implementations

Indeed, within these constructs, the definition and application of mobile can get very wide and deep. The challenge therefore, is to identify the characteristics of mobile, with the applicable technologies which are mobile in context, to create opportunities for ministry-type engagements.

Missions, Media, and Moments
There are currently, three focuses that I’ve seen in the area of mobile ministry which have come to light over the past 6-10 years: mobile in missions, mobile in media, and mobile capturing/definiting moments.

Mobile in missions looks at the application and use of the technology and characteristics of mobile primarily within the context of fulfilling missional engagements. This includes SMS/MMS campaigns, multimedia sharing/engagement, web media development, educational facilitation and mobile health/wellness campaigns.

Mobile in media ascribes the characteristics of mobile to existing media domains (TV, radio, Internet) to bolster activities and engagement to fringe audiences, and to bolster connections to existing audiences. Here we see SMS/MMS campaigns as a subset of a larger media campaign. There is more of a focus on creating experiences through dedicated applications. And we commonly find those persons whom are missional in business contexts creating Gospel-led moments through these activities.

Mobile as a moment is largely the space where personal use and experimentation of the technology becomes the driver of Gospel engagements. Here, we have the use of religious applications such as bible readers, reading plans, and messaging alerts. Many missional and media engagements start also at this level – where a single person, directly with a mobile or with the assistance of a messaging/social networking service, reaches out to friends and loose associates with messages of encouragement, reproof, instruction, etc. In the marketing space, this would be akin to grassroots and viral methodologies at their most basic levels.

Where Do You Stand
Given this short look at defining mobile ministry, I’d hope that you’d be able to better see where you or your organization might stand in respect to how you choose to engage mobile contexts.

At this still early stage of making this field a viable option for ministries and individuals, such definitions are not just helpful, but frame and understanding towards what can and should be the aims of the tools and behaviors that we shape as mobile ministry becomes yet another avenue to share the wealth and depth of the Christian faith to others.

Stay tuned to the Mobile Case Studies/Research page as items there will also continue to contribute to this (working) definition and the means to identify trends in this space.

 

Tags: application, church, discipleship, engagement, mobility, resources, smartphones, SMS
Posted in Commentary, Future Trends | 8 Comments »

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