$1 000 000 000 000. Say it like you mean it: “One trillion dollars.” The mobile industry is the world’s latest trillion dollar baby. What’s more profound is that it was achieved in slightly more than ten years.

How does it compare?

1. 1. Combined with radio, the broadcasting industry is still nowhere near a trillion dollar industry, only about half of that.
2. 2. Advertising is worth roughly half a trillion dollars, in very round terms.
3. 3. The IT industry? Another half trillion there.
4. 4. Air travel is also in the half trillion dollar range.

Does anything compare?

1. 1. Cars,
2. 2. the global food industry,
3. 3. and believe it or not, the global weapons industry are all trillion dollar businesses.
4. 4. Now add mobile to that list.

Where there’s money, there’s people. And where there’s people, there’s a target audience.

Back in 2001 when I got my first mobile phone, text messaging and calling was the only luxury we had. Mobile content was a pipe dream. However, on the 5th of December 2008, exactly 10 years prior, the first downloadable mobile content was launched, the ringtone. Unbeknown to the world population at large, a booming industry was born that day.

For anyone, any business in whatever shape or size not yet fully convinced that the future of digital marketing starts and ends with mobile, allow me to highlight some examples of this ridiculously growing industry (This is a long post, but you WILL be wow-ed, so bear with me):

• 1. The latest numbers reveal that the total number of unique mobile phone owners is now 3.05 billion (46% of the planet’s population do have a mobile phone, even after we remove the multiple subscriptions).

 

• 2. There are 1.4 billion TV sets in the world. But there are 2 billion mobile phones with a colour screen and at least 2.5G network connectivity, meaning they can display “streaming” ie live TV and video.

 

• 3. Of the four digital camera giants, only Canon and Nikon remain in the camera business, Konica and Minolta no longer exist in the camera market; and the world’s bestselling camera brand, since 2004, has been Nokia. (I have a phone with a 5 megapixel camera)

 

• 4. Music on mobile phones today, at the end of 2008, is passing the 11 billion dollar annual revenue level. When we bear in mind, that the total global music industry is only worth 30 billion dollars - it means that more than one in three dollars spent on music globally, is spent on the mobile phone.

 

• 5. 50 Cents with his smash hit, In da Club, in 2003 earned more as ringtone than all other music formats combined - and most annoyingly of course the Crazy Frog - to the tune of 500 million dollars of global sales of their ringtones and related services in 2005 – that’s one ringtone earning more than all of iTunes’ global sales that year.

 

• 6. A third of the mobile phone subscribers on the planet sends MMS picture messages - that is 1.3 billion people for those who are counting. Comparing that with 1.2 billion active users of email, and suddenly MMS is very interesting indeed. Worldwide, you can reach a larger audience if you put your content (or advertising) on an MMS picture message, than if you put it into email.

 

• 7. This year mobile social media passed $9 billion and next year will easily cross the 10 billion dollar level of annual revenues. From zero to 10 billion dollars in six years. Mobile social networking is by far the fastest-growing billion dollar industry ever. For comparison, the online internet side of social media is three times as old, and still hasn’t passed a billion dollars in total revenues - where most of that is advertising revenues. Mobile social networking sites are making oodles of cash, and many have already become profitable in this very short time.

 

• 8. In the past ten years, mobile content has turned into a global giant industry worth over 71 billion dollars of annual revenues. That is as big as all Hollywood box office revenues, plus all global music revenues, and all videogaming software revenues - put together. Hollywood and music are 100 year old industries. Videogaming is a 30 year old industry. But mobile has already grown bigger than all three, combined, in only ten years.

 

• 9. There are under 500 million newspapers sold daily. There are 900 million personal computers connected to the internet. There are 1.3 billion internet users. And 1.4 billion TV sets. But 1.5 billion people will receive ads on mobile phones this year. How many more will receive them next year?

I have a tip for you today. If you walk down the road and spot a public pay phone, take a picture of it, because, like in Finland, they’ll all be gone pretty soon.

My second tip is to get with the times and comprehend the superpowers of the mobile industry. The future of mankind’s commercial business models will rely on a piece of equipment you will rarely leave home without.

Thank you to Tomi Ahonen for his articles, content which I shamelessly copied and shortened for the convenience of my readers. If there are two articles you have to read before Christmas, it’s these two.