Database Reference
In-Depth Information
11.2 Mobile Devices: A Real Market
A mobile device is a small computing device, typically having a display and an
input that can be either a touch input or a miniature keyboard. There are several
kinds of mobile devices including:
l
Mobile phones
l
E-Book readers
l
Handheld game consoles
l
Mobile computers such as netbooks
l
GPS navigation devices
l
Portable media players
l
PDAs (Personal digital assistant)
But mobile phones are the most important mobile devices in terms of their usage,
capacities, and even their size. The United Nations communications agency (ITU)
expects around five billion people to be using mobile/cellular phones in 2010 [
1
], an
increase from four and a half billion in 2009. As the estimated world's population
is 6.8 billion people, the data reflect a mobile phone penetration higher than 70%
worldwide. ITU also expects one billion mobile broadband subscriptions in 2010,
which tops the 600 millions at the end of 2009, and that are expected to exceed Web
access from desktop computers within the next years.
Being a little more realistic, not all mobile phones belong to a unique user. About
35% of unique users have two or more subscriptions. But there are also several
million users sharing a mobile phone with other users, particularly those who live
in poor households, in Africa, or in other parts of the world. So, in contrast, on the
planet there are 1.2 billion PCs of any kind, and Gartner expects 2 billion PCs by 2014;
1.6 billion TV sets; 1.7 billion Internet users; and 3.9 billion FM radio receivers.
The mobile industry is a global giant which generated 1.07 trillion dollars in annual
revenues in 2009 [
2
], which positions the mobile industry among those few earning a
trillion dollars a year (automobiles, food, construction, and military spending).
Mobile phones may be very small devices, but they represent a giant industry
with even greater possibilities in the future. For instance, many print publishers are
focusing on the mobile market as an opportunity to expand their brands, reach new
audiences, and generate additional revenue, which leads Gartner to predict that
global spending on mobile advertising will increase from 913 million dollars in
2009 to 13 billion in 2013 [
3
]. In a recent report, QuickPlay Media [
58
] studied
mobile TV and video consumption in the USA, pooling more than 1,000 US-based
mobile subscribers between 18 and 35. The report shows that almost 80% of
respondents expect that more people will be watching TV and video programs on
their mobile phone by 2010.
In [
45
], Lenhart surveyed teenagers about their mobile phones in 2004 and then
surveyed them again in 2008 to determine how penetration of mobile phones had
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