Mobile marketing statistics for 28 major global markets

Multi-screen is no longer some fancy buzzword used and applied only by a select, savvy few; it’s the reality. The trend is clear across the board: mobile devices are eating into the PC’s share of the internet traffic pie, and it’s happening at a much faster pace than marketers have been able to adapt.

To help businesses better understand the global role and impact of mobile, Webcertain has taken a deep dive into mobile internet usage in 28 major global markets in its new comprehensive 2013 Global Mobile Report. It can be downloaded for free via the previous link.

Develop global mobile strategies which pack a punch

The report is packed with actionable and completely fresh mobile marketing statistics that will help you develop high-performing strategies, locally as well as globally. We’ve removed all the fluff and have focused only on the data that truly matters to your strategic and tactical decision-making. For example, you’ll learn the following for all 28 markets examined:

• The percentage mobile internet traffic makes up of total web consumption, i.e. how dominant is mobile in the overall device mix?

• Internet traffic market share by mobile OS, i.e. which platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone etc.) should you focus your efforts on?

• The number of smartphone users, i.e. what’s the scale of the smartphone user base?

• Smartphone penetration as a percentage of total mobile phone subscriptions, i.e. how prevalent are smartphones compared to feature phones?

• Smartphone year-on-year subscriber growth, i.e. is the market quickly evolving, maturing or lagging behind?

• Monthly tablet and smartphone usage among the internet population.

What’s more? The report provides a comparative overview by region and country, allowing you to see how the different regions and countries stack up against each other on most of the metrics above.

A few key findings

• Google’s mobile OS is growing at a break-neck speed. Android has gone from making up a mere 1.6% of total smartphone sales in Q1 2009 to accounting for a whopping 74% of total global smartphone sales in the first three months of 2013. This has naturally reflected positively on Android’s share of global mobile internet traffic, leaping forward 18 percentage points year-on-year to account for 38% of all mobile web traffic (including that of feature phones).

• In digitally developed economies smartphones largely remain a complementary device in the overall mix, whereas in many emerging markets the mobile phone is the primary or only means to go online. Mobile internet traffic therefore plays a more dominant role in the overall connected device mix in less-developed markets. In Asia, for example, nearly a quarter of all traffic on the web is generated by mobiles; more than 2.5 times the European figure, and exactly double that of North America.

• China has surpassed the US to become the world’s largest smartphone market and increasingly positions itself in a league of its own, with nearly 1 in 4 smartphone users globally now being Chinese. The world’s most populous country now boasts in excess of 350 million smartphone users. Yet, with penetration still sitting below 30%, the future potential is nothing short of mind-boggling.

• More than half of all internet traffic in India comes from mobile phones due to extreme scarcity of fixed broadband. This figure puts India way ahead of any other country examined in this report and emphasises the importance of making mobile a cornerstone in any digital strategy for the market. A smartphone only strategy won’t cut the mustard though, as India remains a heavily feature phone dominated market (smartphone penetration still sits below 10%).

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Immanuel Simonsen

Research Manager at Webcertain

As the Research Manager of multilingual web marketing agency Webcertain, Immanuel heads up the company’s global market research activities and large content marketing projects. He is the author of several reports and guides, including ‘The Essential Guide to Rel-Alternate-Hreflang’ and ‘The Webcertain Global Search and Social Report 2013’. Apart from being a tutor at the International Marketing School -- teaching online marketing professionals on business opportunities around the globe -- Immanuel is a regular speaker at the International Search Summit, a leading event series dedicated to multilingual search and social media marketing.

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