Raja Jasti’s Blog - Renaissance Thinking

The mobile application industry remids me of the internet industry of early 1990s. The flood gates opened with the launch of netscape browser. For the mobile app market, the flood gates opened with the launch of apple iphone. I am betting on the mobile application opportunity. We are close to launching a mobile service for 300M Indian mobile users. I will share the details at the time of the launch.

This morning, I read a lengthy blog post by Tomi Ahonen on this mobile opportunity, which I think is a good primer on the topic.

“Lets start with comparisons. Newspapers? the total circulation of all daily newspapers worldwide is about 480 milllion. Cars? There are about 800 million cars on the planet. Cable and satellite TV subscriptions? About 850 million. Personal computers including desktops, laptops and netbooks, about 1 billion. Fixed landline telephone connections, about 1.2 billion. eMail users about 1.3 billion. Internet users about 1.4 billion. Television sets about 1.5 billion. And credit cards? About 1.7 billion people carry at least one credit card in their wallet.

But there are 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions now in January 2009. More than twice the number of credit card owners, 2.5 times the number of TV sets or internet uses, approx 3 times the number of email users of total landline phones and yes, four times the number of personal computers. This is a monster sized industry, totally towering over all others.

Its not just the size of the established industry. It is a dynamic industry selling a massive number of new devices per year. 1.18 Billion new mobile phones were sold in 2008 (IDC 2009). Compare that with approx 280 million new personal computers, laptops and netbooks sold last year, or under 300 million TV sets and we get to understand the scale.”