Which raises the question, shouldn’t we stop calling it the web and just start calling it the Google?
The only realistic competition on the horizon is Facebook with their back to the future DIY Web Portal strategy and it only attracts about 1/10th of Google’s ARPU.
Talking of Facebook I also discovered that if it became a Telco it would be the third largest in the world today just behind China Mobile and Vodafone.
The other snippet I found interesting was the news that after 15 years of investment and activity eCommerce now accounts for 4% of America’s retail spending. Which made me wonder how much of America’s retail was conducted by mail order catalog before the internet went mainstream.
If we knew this then we could see if eCommerce is quietly revolutionising American retailing or if it is just eMail-Order in disguise.
So I Googled the question and found the answer. Apparently Mail Order Catalogs accounted for $19.3 Billion, or about 1%, in retail sales in 1990. So that would suggest the eBusiness revolution has added 3% to the bottom line of America’s retailers over the past 20 years.
Now obviously that 3% in growth is before we account for any productivity savings. After all eBusiness always was about doing more with less. But 3% doesn’t feel like much of a revolution does it? More a niche industry than a new force in retail.
Which makes me wonder what the mCommerce revolution will look like 20 years from now?
Is Google, Nokia and Facebook set to dominate the Mobile Web in the UK?
One of the other bits of information to be discovered in the Morgan Stanley Report is the chart displaying the change in Mobile Media habits in the UK in 2008.
Old news perhaps but apparently the biggest losers since the arrival of the Mobile Web have been the Telcos and their Mobile Portals. This of course comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my previous post on how Telstra leveraged the MobCon to retain market leadership here in Australia.
The percentage of subscribers accessing the Telco’s portals has dropped by 35%. All which means the undisputed number one of 2007 fell ten places in 2008.
It also comes as no surprise to find FaceBook was the biggest winner (now in 4th spot) and Google emerged as the clear leader. What will come as a surprise to some is the news that Nokia was listed as sitting in equal second place with the BBC. 
This news reinforces my earlier thoughts that the mobile handset manufacturers look set to dominate the mobile web - at the expense of the Telcos – and that the two players most likely to dominate Mobile Content over the next decade will be Google and Nokia,
So where does Apple sit in the mix? That’s an interesting question.
The slide in the Morgan Stanley presentation that I found most relevant for Apple watchers was the one demonstrating how iPhone gaming stacks up against the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS. In that slide the data provided indicated that iPhones owners spend as much time playing games on their device as Nintendo owners (i.e. 2.8hrs/week) and only slightly less than the PSP owners (i.e. 3.0 hours/week). Further proof, if any was needed, that the iPhone is a mobile games platform.
Facebook’s 3.0 iPhone App may be consider the number one app in the App Store for 2009 but the undisputed preference for game play by iPhone owners over social networking was confirmed in a recent study by AdMob that suggests only 38% of iPhone owners report using their iPhone “often” to access their Social Network. (See Mobile Social Networking Study from AdMob)
The other statistic of interest in the Morgan Stanley report is the news that the iTunes store generates an ARPU of $41 per year. That’s double the online advertising ARPU of Google (i.e. $20.06) and proof once again that Apple are masters at maximising their share of the customer’s wallet.
The question is will the iPhone go on to dominate the handset market in 2010 or will it become yet another of Apple’s niche fashion accessories?
Posted on December 30, 2009
0