Quick Take: KPCB’s Internet Trends 2012

Don’t have time to read through KPCB’s 2012 Internet Trends 112-page report presented by Mary Meeker at this years D10 Conference? No problem, we distilled some of the essential mobile data for you here. Quick and dirty, bullet points only.

Device adoption pace is ramping up. Early adoption stage is shorter than ever.
Despite tremendous start, smartphone adoption still has a huge ceiling going by total # of mobile phone subscriptions
Tablet’s and eReaders made a huge jump during the holiday season
Mobile internet traffic growing rapidly, now 10% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Only 1% in 2009 when Applico was just getting started
Ridiculous discrepancy between ad spend on mobile (1%) vs time spent on media (mobile: 10%)
Why the discrepancy? Advertisers still trying to figure out how to create effective mobile ads. Mobile eCPM is much lower.
Good news? Mobile monetization levels in the US could surpass desktop within 1-3 years based on studying the early-adoption Japanese market. Internet experienced same lag in user base/monetization as well.
Mobile internet traffic in India recently surpassed desktop traffic for the first time.
Google/Facebook: mobile bringing in tons of users but they are struggling to monetize (a subject we recently covered)
Inflection point at which mobile subscriptions overtook # of land lines was 2002. Didn’t realize that happened so long ago!
Thoughts on the then/now section: amazing how we take all of this advancement for granted…and we’re only just getting started!
Smartphone OS’s “made in the USA” have gone from %5 in 2005 to 64% today. Thanks to Apple and Google of course.