Around the Net
Report: Mobile Web To Far Outpace Desktop Internet
- Various, Wednesday, December 16, 2009 3:15 PM
Driven by 3G adoption and the increasing popularity of smartphones, the financial services provider predicts that smartphones "will out-ship the global notebook + netbook market in 2010E and out-ship the global PC market (notebook + netbook + desktop) by 2012E."
In particular, Morgan says that Apple's iPhone/iTouch/iTunes ecosystem "may prove to be the fastest ramping and most disruptive technology product / service launch the world has ever seen," while "a handful of incumbents (like Apple, Google, Amazon.com and Skype) appear especially well positioned for mobile changes."
As ReadWriteWeb notes, "The firm has always been bullish on mobile Internet, as Mary Meeker's Web 2.0 conference presentations over the years show."
Even more ominously, Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog says that this latest report, "was intended to be a follow-up to Mary Meeker's 1995 'The Internet Report,' which became known as 'the bible' of the dot-com boom." (For those of you who were stranded on a dessert island, that boom was followed by an equally remarkable bust.)
"My first thought was these reports really haven't changed over the years... there's the same defining the landscape and recalling of history section, coining of terms, the all important 'themes' summary, and money shot powerpoint graphics that anyone pitching a mobile app or data startup will immediately have a geekgasm over," writes the Venture Chronicles blog , adding, "History doesn't mean shit and the great companies always emerge from completely orthogonal plays on what all the smart people predict will happen."
Under the headline, "Morgan Stanley drinks the Apple Kool-Aid," the Apple 2.0 blog further notes that Apple is in the "pole position" in the race to dominate mobile Internet computing, its iPhone is not like previous mobile devices, and its owners are not like ordinary cell phone users. For example, while iPhone and iPod touch owners represent only 17% of the global smartphone installed base, they account for 65% of the world's mobile Web browsing and 50% of its mobile app usage.
It's the device Stupid!
iPhone users are fanatical about their device because it is really a "mobile computer masquerading as a phone." I use a BlackBerry Bold and hardly ever attempt to browse the web because of BB's clumsy UI. My wife uses her iPhone 3G almost like she uses her laptop for web browsing.
While it is possible that the iPhone attracts a demographic that is particularly inclined towards mobile web browsing, I am not convinced that this alone explains how the numbers skew asymmetrically towards iPhone. In any event, my next mobile phone/computer will likely be an iPhone unless Google is able to wow me.