Mobile Trends of 2012... and a Happy New Year!

2012 was a great year for us at Subsplash and for tech companies everywhere! One of the ongoing stories of the past year has been the incredible growth in the mobile market. There are more people than ever using smartphones, and it’s very clear that this trend isn't slowing down anytime soon, although it currently only represents 1/6 of all mobile devices.

There are over 1.1B smartphone subscribers in the world today. The US is currently only second to China in mobile usage and experienced a 50% growth in 2012, but the real growth has taken place outside the US. Several platforms and operating systems make up the smart phone realm, but far ahead of the rest is Android. Although talk of Apple and iPhones is often ubiquitous, Android growth was nearly 6x that of the iPhone in 2012.

With an ever changing landscape, tablets have to be taken into consideration on the mobile front as well. In the US, 29% of adults own a tablet of some sort, up from 2% less than 3 years ago. This past holiday season proved just how integral tablets are to people’s lives. Adults aren’t the only ones yearning for tablets, in fact 48% of American kids asked for an iPad for Christmas, which I'm sure lead to a lot of animosity toward Santa. Not only that, but mobile devices and tablets made up 24% of Black Friday shopping (which is still the US’s top single day for shopping revenues).

Mobile is changing how people live. It won’t be long before every simple activity can be controlled from your smartphone, and we’re almost there. More than 84% of people worldwide say they can't go a single day without their mobile device. Could you?

A few more mobile stats:

-1.1 B smartphones in the world

-45% of adults in US use smartphones

-Android makes up 52% of market

-Apple is 35% of market

-Android has had 25 Billion downloads... Apple hit that 6 months ago.

-More than $100 B was spent on mobile media globally

*All information was gathered from Mary Meeker's presentation " Internet Trends" which can be found at http://www.businessinsider.com/mary-meeker-2012-internet-trends-year-end-update-2012-12?op=1