Nearly half part of the Internet users, 48% are concentrated in five countries, one of which is Brazil with 67 million users and a growth of 14% last year. The country with the largest number of users and the strongest growth in the last year was China with 384 million users and a growth of 29%. This not only confirms the strength of emerging markets and the role that economies such as Brazil will have in the XXI century.

The rapid adoption of the iPhone and its exponential growth in number of users has been a key factor in the launch of Internet use via mobile. In just three years after its launch, iPhone + iTouch users exceeded 11 orders of magnitude the total users of AOL from 1994 to today. According to Morgan Stanley in 2014 users and use more mobile Internet access to any device fixed.

And the number of users of social networks is already higher than those using e-mail from July of 2009.

As reported by Stanley, we are in the 6th technological cycle of the past 50 years. After Mainframes (1960s), the miniComputing (1970s), the era of personal computers (1980s), “Internet Computing Desktop” (1990s) and the Mobile Internet era (2000s), we enter the era of real explosion Mobile Internet use is characterized by: more processing power, improved user interface devices smaller, cheaper, explosion of services and a variety of devices (more than 10 billion devices connected in the world in 2020). The devices have undergone a tremendous evolution over the past 30 years (we all remember the screens of the mainframe or AS/400). Now they are “touch” themselves are controlled by fingers (before mice and keyboards) and used for something more than simple communication: to consume content and applications of all kinds.

The mobile broadband enabled by 3G and its evolution will be the facilitator of this. According to MS the global turning point for the start of the 6th was precisely the year 2010 which will exceed 1000 million 3G users worldwide, representing a 21% global penetration.

Internet use has changed. Social networks and video leading the trend. Users of social networks in the world and to reach 850 million (with an annual growth of 32%) and what is more important, have doubled the number of minutes users spend on them by 50% from prior year . Facebook has 471 million users, having doubled their numbers in just 1 year.

Most important of all is that every time the user will have more value in a single integrated communications device, calendar, games, messaging, videos, music etc. .. and that this device is a mobile.

The use of internet video will grow by 131% (2009-2014) representing 69% of the total data that are moved by the Network in 2014.

Internet use in Apple or Android devices is much greater than in the rest of Smartphones indicating that war device is configured between two, displacing Symbian, RIM or Windows itself.

The proliferation of mobile applications and monetization is also growing. Some mobility-related features such as:

  • Location-based services for finding the services / products we buy in the area where we are.
  • The price comparisons on-line and when it will be a competitive advantage for mobile purchases compared to traditional shopping.
  • Discount due to cost savings of online.
  • The immediate release of the product we buy will make mobile Internet purchases have disruptive characteristics compared to traditional shopping.

In short, we are left with three ideas:

  • The mobile will be the leader of the digital future,
  • The video will be the main causanete the exponential growth of data traffic on the Net
  • The consumer Internet habits will change drastically by the appearance of mobile provides specific parameters and intrinsic.

Do we want to lead it?

Gema Esteban

Source: Fundación Telefónica