A new report from Morgan Stanley Internet shows that the iPhone and iPod Touch have fueled the mobile Web to outstrip the growth of the Web on the desktop. After only eight quarters, the iPhone and iPod Touch have 57 million users. That is more than twice as many users as NTT Docomo's imode mobile, but 5 times as many users as Netscape's 11 million and 8 times as many users as AOL's 7 million users. Can anything challenge the iPhone's throne? The Google Android-based Verizon Motorola Droid might have the best shot to date, if it tackles mobile social networking and location-based services.
Even as bloggers are championing Verizon's Motorola Droid
as the first bonafide challenger for Apple's iPhone, a new report shows the iPhone has boosted the mobile Web to unprecedented
heights.
A new report from Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary
Meeker shows that the iPhone and iPod Touch have fueled the mobile Web to outstrip the
growth of the Web on the desktop.
After only eight quarters, the iPhone and iPod Touch have
57 million users. That is more than twice as many users as NTT Docomo's imode
mobile, but 5 times as many users as Netscape's 11 million and 8 times as many
users as AOL's 7 million users.
Resource Library:
Need more proof of iPhone's force? Citing data from Net
Applications, Meeker said the iPhone boasts an HTML mobile Web page view penetration
rate of 65 percent. The iPhone also racks up 43 percent of mobile applications
usage share, according to AdMob.
Moreover, Meeker's data suggested the iPhone is carrying
AT&T's mobile network, with data traffic 50 times higher than it was before
the first iPhone launched in June 2007. GigaOm's Om Malik backed up the data,
noting that while the rest of AT&T's business is weak:
In the third quarter, the company added 2 million new
wireless subscribers to reach a total of 81.6 million. Further, some 4.3
million 3G-integrated devices were added to the AT&T network, of which the
iPhone accounted for 3.2 million activations. And thanks to that, wireless data
revenues jumped 33.6 percent over the previous year, to $3.6 billion, thus
helping push the ARPU up by 3.8 percent from the same quarter last year.
Can anything top the iPhone? It's unclear, but the Google
Android-based Verizon Motorola Droid might have the best shot to date. Specifications stumbled upon by the Boy Genius Report are impressive. The blog details
the device, with pictures, here.
Moreover, Verizon has done a fine job marketing Droid for being what
iPhone isn't: open, customizable and featuring a 5 megapixel camera and
other features. The Droid is also the first to run the Android 2.0
mobile operating
system and features Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google
Latitude and access to the Android Market, Facebook and other social
media
sites.
At 11 percent of the global smartphone units shipped, the
iPhone has an impressive plot. However, it is early and challengers are racing to the fore from T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon.
Droid and other Android devices could provide
healthy competition because of the great, green fields of mobile social netwoeking
and location-based services, which are largely untapped. Meeker
said:
Improvements in social networking and mobile computing
platforms (led by Facebook + Apple ecosystems) are fundamentally changing ways
people communicate with each other and ways developers/advertisers/vendors
reach consumers. Mobile devices will evolve as remote controls for ever
expanding types of real-time cloud-based services, including emerging category
of location-based services, creating opportunities + dislocations, empowering
consumers in unprecedented + transformative ways.
That's good news for location-oriented mobile
social services such as Foursquare, Loopt and Brightkite. It's also good news
for iPhone challengers who can lure consumers by promoting these services on
their smartphones.
However, its is incumbent on carriers to slake users' thirst for these mobile Web
services, as Meeker noted: "Explosive Apple iPhone/iTouch ramp shows that
usage of mobile devices on IP-based networks should surprise to upside for
years to come and bandwidth suppliers (telcos/cable) face serious challenges in
managing incremental traffic."
Rob Enderle, analyst for the Enderle Group, agreed, noting that the U.S. has a bandwidth shortage. AT&T,
he said, is at the epicenter of it and will have to contend with Verizon's
forthcoming LTE 4G mobile broadband service.
"Also, the smartphone market is still emerging. Only
a small fraction of the people have them and Verizon is clearly positioning
away from the iPhone which gives Apple T-Mobile (closely tied to Microsoft and
Google) and Sprint (Palm) in the US," Enderle said.
Mobile & Wireless 
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