Fascinating Facts about Mobile Internet Use - and Why You Should Take Note

Emarketer.com reported yesterday that Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) - which represent 43% of the world’s population - will account for nearly 1.2 billion mobile phone subscribers this year.

Mobile is not simply viewed as an extension of the Web in BRIC, as it is in the US, Western Europe and parts of Asia-Pacific… Mobile is the Internet for an increasingly large and attractive consumer segment—an important distinction for marketers to keep in mind.

- John du Pre Gauntt, author of the new report, Mobile BRIC: Extreme Growth Ahead.

Though I don’t “do” the BRIC countries, it’s interesting because the same case is true in Philippines - where not a whole lot of people have access to computers, but EVERYONE has access to a mobile phone.  With mobile internet access rates as low as P10 for 30 mins, I imagine that for most Filipinos the mobile web IS the internet as well.

Here are some other interesting stats I dug up:

• Americans spend more than 4.5 hours per month browsing on Smart Phones. - M:Metrics (May 2008)
• 64% of key decision makers are viewing your carefully crafted email on their BlackBerrys and other mobile devices.  MarketingSherpa, in partnership with SurveySampling (2007)
• 37% of business people regularly read business emails on their mobile devices (keyword “regularly”), up from 30% just a year ago. - Exact Target (2007)
• 18% of email users use mobile devices to sort email. - David Daniels, Vice President JupiterResearch (Dec. 2007)

Point is, the number of users browsing the Web from mobile phones is increasing rapidly on a global scale. 

Is your company ready for this? How “mobile-browser-friendly” are your websites and emails?  Definitely something to think about.  

If you ARE thinking about it, you’ll find some useful tips on designing for the mobile web in Brian Suda’s article on Sitepoint.com.