During the recent Mobile Web Africa conference in Johannesburg, 3G strategy consultant Tomi Ahonen took the stage to talk about the prospect of mobile technology and how it changes the world. Here are the highlights from his keynote:
- Mobile is the fastest way to reach consumers. According to a study conducted in New Zealand, e-mail is read 48 hours after it is sent, while the average SMS is read in four minutes. In other words, SMS is 720 times faster than e-mail in message-opening throughput.
- Nokia reported that the average person looks at their phone 150 times a day, or once every six-and-a-half minutes of every waking hour. In Africa, it’s 82 times a day, or every 12 minutes.
- After optimizing its website for mobile devices, Tiffany’s sales grew 125%, prompting Ahonen to conclude that there isn’t going to be “one Internet.”
- In China, mobile newspapers have converted 39% of their readers to pay for MMS news headlines. The country’s leading mobile operator, China Mobile, has 40 million paying users on SMS- and MMS-based twice-daily headline services of branded newspapers’ headlines.
Finally, Ahonen concluded that mobile is the fastest growing industry ever, going “from naught to $1 trillion in 2010, and is set to double by 2020.”
[Via: textually]
