Everybody has a mobile phone; your Mom, Dad, 8-year-old nephew, grandma, grandpa, Cousin Eddie – you get the picture. It’s commonplace to see people on their cellphone in a car, waiting in line at the grocery store, or working out at the gym. This is not breaking news (but might be breaking laws – don’t text and drive!), yet many companies do not have a mobile strategy and often their website is not optimized to be viewed from a mobile device.
iPhone was first released more than six years ago on June 29, 2007. It is mind boggling to comprehend how far we have come in this time. I am sure you have read and seen dozens if not hundreds of articles talking about how we are now a mobile society and you have been bombarded with stats. It’s all a bit overwhelming, and hard to find the info you really need. This post is to help put many of those stats into one place so you can get a real idea and overview of what is going on in the mobile world. It is important to know the current trends and these statistics will help you realize how crucial mobile is to your marketing strategy.
Stats on Mobile
Here are some statistics that help illustrate just how many people are now using mobile phones worldwide.
- By the end of 2013 there were 6.8 billion cellular connections, just slightly less than the 7 billion total global population.
- Worldwide over 6% of the global population owns a tablet, 20% own PCs, and 22% (over 1.5 billion) own smartphones.
- Wireless data traffic will continue to grow at a rate of 66% a year over the next 5 years.
- 2013 had over 275 million LTE smartphones shipped worldwide; this is 3X the number shipped in 2012.
- The smartphone market is expected to double from 2011 to 2014.
- Approximately 60% of the US population now uses a smartphone while over 90% of the population at least has some sort of mobile phone.
Mobile phones were once primarily used for calling and texting but now they are used for much more than this. With so many people using cell phones it is inevitable that mobile apps would see an explosion in downloads. On May 16, 2013 Apple announced that there have been over 50 billion apps downloaded from the App Store! Customers are downloading more than 800 apps per second at a rate of over two billion apps per month on the App Store. The mobile-app market grew to be over $25 billion in 2013.
Similar to apps, social networks have also grown in popularity with the mobile phone growth (sorry MySpace). 70% of smartphone users are frequent Facebook users and on average they check Facebook 14 times a day, 2 min 22 seconds on average each time. The top 3 apps on phones are email, web browser, and Facebook.
With the nationwide adoption of mobile phones over the past decade it is no surprise to see US mobile advertising growing significantly. In 2012 US mobile ad spending grew by 178% to $4.11 billion and is predicted to have grown another 77% in 2013 to $7.29 billion.
What do all these numbers mean? It means that mobile is here to stay whether you are ready for it or not. Whether you need to optimize your website to make sure it is mobile friendly or if you need a stand alone mobile app are questions your company needs to be asking right now.
About the Author
Andrew Dremak is a Senior Account Executive at MJD Interactive, and a good friend of the Ignite Visibility team. Andrew has been in marketing for over a decade, and is responsible spearheading new applications, website development and design projects and more at MJD.
