• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, January 16, 2015

All I can say is, holy cow. That’s the inescapable conclusion after seeing a new report by the Boston Consulting Group, which estimates that mobile devices generated a total economic value of almost $10 trillion in 2014.

That includes $3.3 trillion in revenues globally from the sale and use of mobile devices, and another $6.4 trillion in aggregate “consumer surplus” value generated in six leading countries — meaning the economic benefit that users derive from participating in the mobile economy, over and above what they pay for mobile devices, apps and services.

For example, U.S. consumers report that their mobile phone connection generates an average value of $5,800 beyond what they pay for it. The report didn’t quantify the consumer surplus in the majority of other countries, so the true figure is probably far higher.

For comparison’s sake, $10 trillion is 58% of total U.S. GDP, estimated at around $17.3 trillion in 2014, and it matches estimates for China’s GDP in 2014. And of course, that means that it’s bigger than the economy of every other nation on earth.

Not bad, considering global mobile phone penetration was just 12% in the year 2000, and mass market smartphones didn’t even exist until 2007, with the launch of the first Apple iPhone (or 2003 with BlackBerry, if you want to be a stickler). Since then, total mobile penetration worldwide has risen to two-thirds in 2014, while smartphone penetration soared to 24.5% last year.

Looking at the figures more closely, the $3.3 trillion in revenues generated directly by mobile devices includes $260 billion from component design and manufacturing; $450 billion from original equipment manufacturers; $520 billion from device retail; $220 billion from mobile infrastructure and equipment; $230 billion from mobile site operations; and a whopping $1 trillion from mobile operators. The separate category of mobile content and apps, including app sales, mobile advertising, and mobile commerce, is worth $530 billion.

Overall, the mobile economy is directly responsible for 11 million jobs around the world.

According to separate estimates from Gartner and eMarketer, global spend on mobile advertising reached $18 billion last year. Which, sure, sounds like a lot -- but next to $3.3 trillion it’s a drop in the bucket (0.55%, to be precise).