Let's play a game of 'complete this sentence'. There are more mobile
devices than....
Got the answer? You may well have done. There is more than one correct
answer - the growth of mobile devices has been so rapid, so accelerated, in
recent years that they have literally taken over the world. That's no
exaggeration: earlier this year it was reported that the number of mobile
subscriptions has now outstripped the population of our little planet!
In October it was revealed that the number of active SIM cards had
reached 7.22 billion, while the world's population, at the same time, was 7.2
billion. In fact, there are over one billion mobile subscriptions in China
alone. The speed of growth is certainly in mobile's favour. The human
population is increasing at 1.2% annually, while the number of devices is
multiplying at a rate five times that.
Here are a few other head-turning facts regarding the dominance and
far-reaching influence of mobile devices:
More mobile phones than toothbrushes? True, and that was actually the
case a couple of years ago, as revealed by Google - the number of mobile devices
outnumber the number of toothbrushes by two to one. Is that right? Well, mobile
devices are far easier - and more hygienic - to share, after all.
In Uganda, it's believed that around ten percent of the population has
electricity but more than a third of the population - around ten million people
- own a mobile phone.
Last year, the United Nations reported that there were more people with
mobile phones (six billion, out of the total world population of seven billion)
than there were with access to clean toilets (4.5 billion).
For every desktop computer there are ten mobile devices, and according
to a report published by We Are Social in August 2014, there are 4.4 billion
mobile subscribers compared to 4.2 billion television viewers.
The penetration rate of smartphones has already passed feature phones
in many countries - two thirds of USA citizens already own a smartphone,
according to research from Nielsen.
Global smartphone activations outnumber child births worldwide by three
to one.
A study by Juniper Research has forecast that smartphone shipments are
expected to reach 1 billion annually by 2016.
Sales of Apple products showcase what has been described as the mobile
acceleration affect: compare and contrast how long it took for one million of
the following items to be sold: 360 days for iPod; 74 days for iPhone; 28 days
for iPad; two days for iPad2; less than a single day for the iPhone 5
smartphone. It's difficult to track the pace of sales for the iPhone 6,
released earlier this year - four million of the devices were sold in the first
24 hours of pre-order sales, and ten million in the first three days.
No comments:
Post a Comment