Global mobile web usage reality check

When it comes to the mobile web, it’s easy to presume that the world is dominated by North America and Europe, and the leading companies are Apple and Google (Android).

Handily, Royal Pingdom just did a nice bit of analysis showing exactly how far that is from the truth, based on figures from Statcounter and 3 million websites:


And in more detail:

  • Mobile web makes up around 3.81% of all global web usage
  • Web usage isn’t uniform across regions. In Africa, Chad has close to 29% mobile web usage, Nigeria just over 25%, Sudan just over 22%.
  • India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Turkmenistan and Bangladesh are all around 15%
  • Japan? 2.17% mobile web traffic.
  • Nokia phones dominate in these countries with unusually high shares, often more than 90% of traffic coming from Symbian phones. Then it’s usually Sony Ericsson, or Samsung handsets

Many businesses are concentrating on one territory at a time, and therefore global stats might not change your perception that much, but it’s important to note the manufacturer share globally and outside of the U.S (Where Nokia doesn’t really exist), before you make predictions of manufacturer viability for the future.

When you’re considering mobile websites and mobile applications, do you actually know which platform your consumers own and use?

Engaging the social network – and publishing a magazine

It’s been an interesting day today.

One reason was the mobile internet seminar organised by Emap co-blogger Dave Cushman, to encourage debate, discussion and understanding about the mobile web. It was one of the most interesting seminars I’ve been to, as it also included Tomi Ahonen, co-author of Communities Dominate Brands, and Jonathan MacDonald from new mobile network Blyk, which only officially launched yesterday. Oh, and Jon Williams from ad agency Beattie McGuiness Bungay.

Plenty of great ideas, inspiration and some workshops that proved we could engage the network when we get the time and space to do it…Plus a run through of Blyk which definitely looks likely to change the mobile internet. I don’t expect it to happen overnight, but I think it will grow to be pretty darn significant. It certainly seems to have everything in place to offer free mobile usage in exchange for a level of engagement which users could actually enjoy, rather than being irritated by…

If that wasn’t enough for one day, the great team on Disposable Media have once again put together a superb issue of the free online magazine I’m honoured to be Editor of… Please do take a peek and let me, or the team, know what you think… Espeically if you have any feelings about how advertising could be implemented, or we should be engaging the DM community…