Morgan Stanley’s uber-analyst Mary Meeker recently published her 671(!) page report on the state (and future) of the mobile internet. Of her eight “key themes” in the report, one really stood out:
Mobile is Ramping Faster Than Desktop Internet Did and Will Be
Bigger Than Most Think – a confluence of five factors (3G + Social
Networking + Video + VoIP + Impressive Mobile Devices) Are Driving This
Change
Whoa. Think about that for a second. Mobile Internet usage is ramping even faster
than Desktop usage did between the early 90s and today. As soon as
2012, smartphones are predicted to out-ship worldwide PC shipments. Because of this advancement in the way the internet is consumed, there are now wireless bundles (https://att-bundles.com/wireless/) that families can use to put everyone in the home on the same plan, helping them save money.
So what does this mean to the customer conversation? Two things:
- You need to be thinking now about how you reach customers via the mobile channel
- More importantly, you need to be thinking now (or, perhaps even last week) about how customers reach you via the mobile channel
Now, this was the slide that blew me away:
Check that out. Not just the rate of growth, but the magnitude as
well. While the iPhone does not equal the entirety of the mobile
market by any means, it’s stunning to see that the iPhone + iTouch have
8x the amount of market penetration that AOL did at a similar point in
its trajectory, and over 5x the number of users that Netscape did.
This isn’t just a wave, or even a tsunami. Mobile is going to
fundamentally change the landscape with respect to how customers and
companies connect.
Good post. I agree. Businesses need to engage with their customer using the ‘mobile’ channel, not just contact. It has to be a 2 way interactive process. Otherwise it is just like the old web 1.0 model.
Businesses need to consider how to make themselves available for access from any of the mobile channels that their consumers prefer to use (there is no one clear winner) so businesses need to support: sms, mms, email, twitter, facebook, Instant Messaging, IVR, Voice, RFID/NFC, Bebo, Xing, LinkedIn, mobile web, iPhone App, Android Apps, WinMob Apps, etc which are all available via a range of smart-ish phones.
The difference with using these communication tools on a mobile, is that the user is typically mobile! They are somewhere when they want answers and they want them now. So businesses need to consider how to respond to their customers requests immediately, uniformly and relevantly.
Social Mobile with peer recommendations & crowsourcing info will influence buyer patterns for sure.
[ A side note relating to the chart: Even with the uptake of iPhones & the AppStore, one must put into perspective that despite Apple’s apparent mobile domination it still only has .2% of the global mobile market and that traditional handset manufacturers still outsell Apple 10 to 1, so building an iPhone App is not the solution to reaching/engaging with all your customers, not even the 80/20 rule applies here. Even in the UK, the iPhone is only 5%. So if you base your mobile strategy on say the iPhone, that is a lot of addressable market you are missing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m an iPhone & Mac owner ( & love it ) but from a business perspective, it makes sense to be able to cover all the mobile devices and technologies that my customer base use, not just one. ]