Smartphone Numbers and the Remaking of Wealth

Numbers from the front-lines of the smartphone wars:

November 2010

October 2010

• Global smartphone sales for Q3 2010 were estimate at 340.5 million.
• According to IDC, Nokia sold 110.4 million units during the third quarter, Samsung 71.4 million, LG 28.4 million, Apple 14.1 million, and BlackBerry 12.4 million.
• 29.7% of all mobile phone users in the United States use a smartphone.

Q3 2010 results:

September 2010

• As of 1 September 2010, iTunes is the world's largest digital media store.  This includes the following downloads:
• 450 million TV episodes
• 11.7 billion songs
• 100 million movies
• 35 million books
• YouTube has 160 million views a day from mobile phones
• Foursquare has a total of 185 million check-ins as of 21 September 2010 (in May 2010, the total number of check-ins was 40 million)

August 2010

• Figures from the first half of the year show that smartphone apps totalled $2.2 billion (US) for January - June, 2010. 3.8 billion mobile apps were downloaded in the first six months of 2010.

July 2010

• There are approximately 400 million mobile broadband subscriptions. Ericsson predicts this will grow to over 3.5 billion by 2015.
• Over 1/3 of Africans have a mobile phone plan.
• Smartphones comprised 19% of total mobile handset sales for Q2 2010.
• China's middle class ($11,000 - $20,000 US) is expected to reach 700 million people by 2020.
• Mobile phone advertising in the US is now at a rate of about $600 million a year.

June 2010

• Apple is selling approximately 1 iPad every 3 seconds.
• Online pre-orders for the iPhone 4 topped 600,000 on the first day.

May 2010

• 55 million smartphones were sold in Q1 2010. This is now 18% of the mobile handset market -- and growing, rapidly.
• Approximately 20 million Americans watched video on their smartphones in the first quarter of 2010.
• iPads began outselling Macs (at a nearly 2:1 rate in the US)
• In the last 5 years, America's newspaper industry has lost more than half its total revenues.
• China has 786 million mobile phone subscribers.
• 145 million Americans watched an average of 101 videos on YouTube during the month.

April 2010

• iPhone users spend 30 minutes a day using one or more iPhone apps.
• The 185,000 apps available on Apple's App Store have been downloaded a total of 4 billion times. There are over 50,000 apps in the Android Market.
• Over 200 million people visit Facebook everyday. They have over 400 million users.
• In the past year, approximately 1 million US households got rid of their cable/satellite tv -- and replaced it with various web-based options (e.g. Hulu, iTunes, Netflix). We want what we want when we want it where we want it. Not so hard, really.
• Twitter has 105 million users who generate over 50 million tweets every day. The company has about 150 employees.
• The top 100 apps in the App Store earn $300,000 a day.

March 2010

• There are over 4 billion mobile phones in use.
• 3,000 apps were available specifically for the iPad -- on its first day of sale.
• There are 150,000 apps on the iTunes App Store.
• This month saw the development of over 9,000 new apps for the Android
• 45 million Americans have smartphones. 234 million Americans have mobile phones.
• 40 million Americans are on food stamps.
• Apple sold its 10 billionth iTunes song and had its 3 billionth App download.
• Apple generates more revenue (and profit) from iPhone that the Mac line and iPod line combined.

2009

• 1.2 billion mobile phones were sold in 2009, a slight decline from 2008.  About 175 million smartphones were sold in 2009, a 24% increase from the previous year.
• Only $1.4 billion was spent worldwide on mobile ads.
• 150 million Chinese, under the age of 25, access the Internet primarily via their mobile phone/smartphone. Expect this number to continue growing.
• By the end of the year, approximately 45 million smartphones were in use in the United States.