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Mobile wins in global race, but not ads

Smartphones have twice the global reach of laptops and PCs. Penetration in the 15 biggest developed markets was at 65% at the end of 2013, it was only 23% for the 15 biggest emerging markets, notes Mary Meeker in a mobile-centric 2014 Internet Trends Report.

Smartphones have twice the global reach of laptops and PCs. Penetration in the 15 biggest developed markets was at 65% at the end of 2013, it was only 23% for the 15 biggest emerging markets, notes Mary Meeker in a mobile-centric 2014 Internet Trends Report.

Global smartphone penetration has reached 22%, well above 11% penetration for laptops and 10% penetration for desktops. Tablets are still only at 6%, and mobile phones in general at 73%. There were 2.61 billion global Web users at the end of 2013, and 1.79 billion smartphone subs. Mobile made up 25% of Internet traffic as of May 2014, up from 15% a year ago and 10% two years ago.

Mobile accounts for over 1/5 of online video time (favorable for YouTube).Internet ad sales grew 16% last year to $116bn. Google had a Q1 annualised ad ARPU of $45 (up $3 Y/Y), dwarfing Facebook's (FB) $7.24 (up $2.84), and Twitter's (TWTR) $3.55 (up $1.58), it says. Mobile is estimated to account for 20% of media time spent, and just 4% of ad sales. For Internet, the figures are 25% and 22%.