According to comScore data, the social networking site Facebook is still the largest photo site on the Web: Facebook now has more than 10 billion photos.
Also: 69 percent of Facebook's monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos.
If we measure how high is the 3G penetration rate per capita, not the 3G migration per total subscrber base - then we get a very different view... Italy has already 48% 3G phones per capita. So there is a 3G phone for almost half of all Italians. Now 3G is clearly a success. Note this is higher as a penetration rate for Italy, than personal computer penetration, or fixed internet penetration (per capita, not per household).
So, I wanted to give our readers a look at how 3G is doing. Here are the world's leading countries, not by how many of their subscribers have upgraded to 3G, but rather, by national penetration rate of 3G per capita, ie per all human beings:
South Korea 67%
Japan 67%
Singapore 61%
Australia 53%
Italy 48%
Austria 47%
Sweden 43%
Taiwan 43%
Finland 42%
Portugal 41%
Israel 39%
Norway 38%
Spain 38%
Thats the baker's dozen leading countries. All around the world. 13 countries where there is a 3G phone subscription for over a third of the population and very smoothly up the curve up to two thirds of the population. Is there any doubt that 3G is happening? That 3G is a success? That 3G will happen everywhere? (for those looking for the USA, it is at 20% - remember this is per capita, and USA lags the Industrialized World still so much, that they have not even reached the 100% national mobile phone penetration rates yet. Germany is ahead at 23%, the UK is at 32%).
The above stats from several sources including the Netsize Guide 2009, the ITU 2008 and Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009. But yes, its been a long time coming, but the world's biggest infrastrructure investment, - and the world's biggest economic gamble - have panned out. 3G is well on its way to being a major success. But of who will end up winners and losers?
It is no longer a technology game. Like I've said for years already, the winners in 3G will be determined by services and marketing. Some of the past giants have been very slow to grasp that... And for anyone who would like to read a 2 page summary of the major stats on this industry, remember I have my free Thought Piece on Mobile in 2009. I'll be happy to send it to you, if you send me an email to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com.
Over all, these devices make up about 10 percent of the U.S. cell phone market and are considered likely to grow in popularity, driving people to upgrade and pay for more data to do things like download songs and send text messages. In the fourth quarter, for example, AT&T's data revenue for each subscriber rose 27 percent, to $16.30 from about $12 a year earlier.
Smartphones notwithstanding, the number of handsets sold around the world has been falling in important regions -- even before the recession. In Western Europe, there were around 191 million mobile phones sold in 2007, a figure that fell to 171 million in 2008 and is projected at 165 million in 2009, according to Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with the research firm Gartner.
In the United States, people bought 176 million handsets in 2007, and 184 million in 2008. That number will probably remain flat this year, the Gartner analyst said. She said that Europe might provide some indication of where the United States was headed because, as highly populated as America is with phones, it is still slightly behind Europe. In the fourth quarter, Nokia sold 113 million handsets, down about 15 percent from a year earlier. Samsung Electronics said worldwide cell phone demand might be down 10 percent in 2009.
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. February 4, 2009 – The worldwide mobile phone market experienced an unusual downturn in the normally robust fourth quarter of 2008 (4Q08). According to IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 289.0 million units, 12.6% lower than the 330.8 million units shipped during 4Q07. For the full year 2008, vendors shipped a total of 1.18 billion units worldwide, 3.5% greater than the 1.14 billion units shipped during 2007.
The underlying root cause? “Sheer fear sapped the confidence of consumers, enterprises and corporate users across the board,” says Jake Saunders, Asia-Pacific Vice-President of ABI Research. “As a result, 2008 signed out the year with 1.21 billion handsets shipped for an annual growth of 5.4%. Just a year ago we had +16%”. Market Shares:
*Nokia 38.6%
*Samsung 16.2%
*LG 8.3%
*Sony Ericsson 8.0%
*Motorola 8.3%
*RIM 1.9%
*Kyocera 1.4%
*Apple iPhone 1.1%
*HTC 1.1%
*Sharp 1.0%
*Other 14.1%
2008 was very much a Year of Winners and Losers:
* The largest gainer in market-share was Samsung with an increase of +2.7% (2008: 16.2%). Samsung had a faultless four quarters, driven by handsets such as the Omnia and Ultra series.
* The next significant gainer was Nokia with +1.8% (38.6%). Most of those gains, however, were secured in the first half of the year. Market-share started to slide in the second half and 4Q in particular as emerging market growth stalled.
* LG secured a +1.5% increase for an 8.3% share, in particular gaining significant traction in the North American market.
* “While those three manufacturers dominate the global market, it probably would not come as a surprise to many that RIM (Blackberry) and Apple (iPhone) boldly moved up in the market-share stakes with growths of 0.9% and 0.8% respectively,” notes Kevin Burden, Practice Director for Mobile Devices. Despite the tough economic climate, these two players are likely to continue their march to the consumer centre-stage but it in a way that does not drop their handset ASPs to bargain basement levels. HTC was late entering the consumer smartphone market with the Android-based G1, but the vendor has significant contracts in place (such as T-Mobile) which should play to the its advantage in 2009.
* The vendor with the most significant loss in market-share was Motorola with –5.1% in 2008 (8.3%). This is an improvement on 2007 in which the firm suffered a –7.8% drop, but it underscores the urgency for Sanjay Jha and Motorola’s senior management to deliver robust selling products in 2009. It will be a tough year for Motorola but it needs to deliver handsets that draw back the once faithful Motorola purchaser before it is truly too late. The challenge is that purchasers in 2009 will be very, very picky.
* Sony-Ericsson also stumbled in the mid part of 2008 with a -0.7% contraction in market-share. The release of Experia 1X in 4Q and related smartphone products could help the vendor improve market share in 2009.
“Sharp revisions to country-by-country economic conditions in the space of just three months will likely mean that a YoY handset shipment contraction of between -5% and -10% is becoming a distinct possibility,” concludes Saunders. “What is certain is that handset vendors will be trying to convince everyone they should own a smartphone. Welcome to the Year of Smartphone”.
Posts
All Comments
