Internet Trends from Mary Meeker

Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, published her '2012 Internet Trends Year-End Update'



The full presentation is on Slideshare, first seen on Venturebeat.

Here are some of the figures that caught my eye:

• 2.4 billion Internet users with 8% year on year growth. 500 million of these (ie 20%) are in China - this only represents 40% of penetration in China.
• Let's contrast China's figures with the US: 250 million users with only 3% annual growth with a penetration of 78%.
• 29% of adults in the US now own either a tablet or an e-reader.
• Mobile devices now account for 13% of worldwide internet traffic - 4% in 2010. In India, mobile Internet traffic now exceeds desktop Internet traffic.
• The graph above shows the dominance of Windows and Intel in the 90s and early 2000s - and the explosion in Android devices.
• The number of landlines peaked in 2006 with 1.3 billion.
• In 2102, it is estimated that 2 billion bluetooth devices were shipped (up 87 times in 10 years); 1.5 billion Wi-fi devices were shipped (up 5 times in 4 years)
• By Q2 2013 it is esimated that the number of Smartphones + Tablets will exceed the number of PCs in the world.
• If 2,000 zettabytes was created and shared in 2011 then 8,000 zettabytes are estimated to be shared in 2015. (1 zettabyte = 1 trillion zettabytes).
• In 2006, Nokia Symbian operating system was shipped on 65% of smartphones (globally). By 2012, 65% of smartphones were shipped on Android and another 20% were shipped on iOS

Mobile Internet penetration nearly at 50%

In a widely reported report from the Office of National Statistics (see BBC report), mobile internet usage has risen from 31% in 2010 to 45% in 2011.

Home usage represented 77% of households, up 4%. Has the market saturated? Very likely, but I strongly suspect there is another effect going: mobile substitution for fixed line internet connection at home. Why bother paying for two internet connections, when smart phone users can tether their home internet requirements to their phone.

Mad as a box of frogs (to quote a former colleague of mine), operators are still permitting unlimited internet connection on their phones. For the sanity of the industry and to protect their future, they must cap this to 500Mb or 1Gb per month (for example). Relying on reasonable use clauses in contracts is insufficient to protect the operators from data hungry customers. More importantly, operators set the correct paradigm: this resource isn't infinite and if you consume more of it, you need to pay more for it.

Internet not needed here

Among the 23% of the population who remain offline, half said they "didn't need the internet." 

The ONS report is the first since dot-com entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox was appointed as the government's UK Digital Champion, with a brief to increase internet uptake.

In a statement, Ms Lane-Fox said: "That so many offline households don't see any reason to get online reinforces the importance of the digital champions network that the Raceonline2012 partners are creating." 

Bless Martha, what an evangelist, I'd be quite happy with reaching 77% of the population with total addressable market of 88%. Of the remaining 12% of the market, I would assume that they might have additional ways of getting on the super information highway (eg at work)??

Other Tidbits

While 71% of 16 to 24-year-old who went online said they used mobile broadband, just 8% of internet users aged over 65 made use of the newer technology.

Only 71% of 16-24 year olds??? I find this figure unbelievable, at face value. This doesn't (shurely) indicate their usage. I suspect that this democratic borrows internet connectivity from others (eg the library or internet cafes) rather than owns the internet connection themselves.

The ONS survey also found a dramatic rise in the use of wifi hotspots - a seven-fold increase since 2011 - suggesting that the rise of 3G has done little to slow demand for free and paid-for wireless access. 

7 fold increase??? Really? I need to do more research, because I'm not seeing an order of magnitude increase. Comments anyone?