7.1 Billion People, 7.1 Billion Mobile Phone Accounts Activated

Freshly Exhumed (105597) writes "Tomi Ahonen's newly released 2014 Almanac reveals such current mobile phone industry data gems as: 'The mobile subscription rate is at or very very nearly at 100%. For 7.1 Billion people alive that means 7.1 Billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.' Compared with other tech industries, he says: 'Take every type of PC, including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs and add them together. What do we have? 1.5 Billion in use worldwide. Mobile is nearly 5 times larger. Televisions? Sure. We are now at 2 Billion TV sets in use globally. But mobile has 3.5 times users.' Which mobile phone OS is the leader? ''Android has now utterly won the smartphone platform war with over 80% of new sales. Apple's iPhone has peaked and is in gradual decline at about 15% with the remnant few percent split among Windows, Blackberry and miscellaneous others.'"

Comments

Sanity check

[Russ1642]

Usually when you get a number like this you do a sanity check to make sure it's reasonable. This is so plainly obviously a BS number.

Re:Sanity check

[Bacon Bits]

These are telecommunications companies. Sanity doesn't figure in to their business plan.

Re:Sanity check

[Savage-Rabbit]

These are telecommunications companies. Sanity doesn't figure in to their business plan.

You have clearly never worked for an investment bank.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. There is a large portion of or population that most assuredly do not have mobile phone service (children under 8 in industrial countries, most anyone living in third-world countries, pretty much everyone living in poverty - did you know that almost 50% of the world's population lives on less than $2.50 a day - http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats - kind of hard to pay for a cellular phone on less than $2.50/day). And please, don't bother saying "I know a 5 year old who has a cell" and think that it means anything. A few exceptions do not a rule make.

The accounting here is suspect. For example, my iPad (given to me as a perk from work - I'd never actually spend my own money on a tablet device) has a cellular module. I don't use it, have never activated it, but it probably shows up in this survey as a mobile device. On the other hand, I have 9 computers/laptops in my house - most of them put together from components. I sincerely doubt that this survey was able to look at my purchasing of components and realize that I had put together 9 computers or that 3 of the laptops are rarely, if ever, used anymore.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

And neither does basic math. You don't need to look any further than your bill for proof.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's very possible with multiple people having multiple subscriptions. I personally have 3: a business cell, a personal cell (on the tmobile $30 unlimited data plan), and my previous personal cell (a per-minute prepaid plan which I don't use but it still valid through the end of the year). Don't a lot of ipads (and other tablets) have cellular models which requires their own cellular plan? That's a ton of people with dual accounts. I know some people don't have a landline at home and instead keep an extra prepaid cellular plan for whoever babysits at their house (though I don't know how common this is).

Re:Sanity check

[Kjella]

You honestly think telcos don't know how many subscribers they have? Everybody I know from age 10 and up has one and personally I've got two phones, one for home and one for work. In my case it's because my employer's policy is very strict on mixing work related records with random apps that could compromise the phone. So does a friend of mine so he can hand the "work phone" to someone else when he's away, because that's the number many people call. It doesn't take many of us to add up to >100% of the population.

Re:Sanity check

[gl4ss]

it is reasonable.

what you FAIL and maybe article writer fails in is quite simply that many people have many subs to their name.

and then there's all the non personal mobile phone subscriptions( remember this internet of things hype stuff?). you know, billboards, hand dryers etc which have sims and connect to the net.

Re:Sanity check

[schnell]

It's got nothing to do with that. As the GP said, this is a total BS interpretation of the statistic. In wireless telco parlance, a "subscriber" is just an active SIM, not a person. So the total # of "subscribers" among mobile systems includes not just cellular phones but also cellular wireless enabled laptops/tablets/Kindles; all the cars out there with OnStar or something similar; every truck or car with a wireless fleet tracker; every cargo container or physical asset that has a wireless location/anti-theft tracker; every FedEx driver who has a cellular-enabled signature capture reader; every utility meter or security camera with a cellular data link... the list goes on and on. "7.1 billion" is probably more like 1/2 people with phones and 1/2 "things" with cellular connections.

Re:Sanity check

[MarkRose]

Didn't you mean to say.... a phony number?

Re:Sanity check

[Punto]

I have 3 mobile subscriptions and 0 TVs, si those numbers sound legit to me.

Re:Sanity check

[sjbe]

You honestly think telcos don't know how many subscribers they have?

I think they have strong incentives to inflate the number of subscribers they actually have to look good for their investors. One cell phone for every man, woman and child on the planet? Yeah, I'm a little dubious. There are a LOT of young people, poor people and old people who do not have cell phones.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a work phone, a personal phone, a laptop with 3g, a tablet, and a tracker in the works van I use most days.
If I account for 5 mobile phone accounts on a good day, there are probably a lot of people who've got me beat.

So yeah, I'd guess it's reasonable but I'd also like to see the margin of error as to how many of those devices are "Pay as you go" accounts that have never been used or got used once then discarded.

Re:Sanity check

[CanHasDIY]

.. or the RIAA.

Re:Sanity check

[Em Adespoton]

You honestly think telcos don't know how many subscribers they have? Everybody I know from age 10 and up has one and personally I've got two phones, one for home and one for work. In my case it's because my employer's policy is very strict on mixing work related records with random apps that could compromise the phone. So does a friend of mine so he can hand the "work phone" to someone else when he's away, because that's the number many people call. It doesn't take many of us to add up to >100% of the population.

I think telcos know how many subscribers they have -- I also think telcos don't know how many telcos there are globally. Among other things I think, I think this is likely the number of SIM cards produced to date, not active subscribers, and I think that people who work for telcos probably have a disproportionately large number of subscriptions.

I really have no problem with the stats on phone subscriptions, even though I'm pretty sure it's a projection that treats all parts of the world equal. However, their jump to "almost every person in the world has a phone" is silly, as I'm pretty sure that, just pulling a figure out of my head, that at least 40% of the people in the world don't have a cell phone. This number is borne out by the fact that there are many people who have two, and many businesses have "fleet subscriptions" that are not all in use. Plus you have to factor in all the test subscriptions, phone cards sold at 7-11, lost/stolen/abandoned phones that have a stored value subscription but aren't actually in use, etc.

I know of at least 8 people who don't have a cell phone, and at least 8 people who have 2+.

What IS interesting, is that cellphones have somehow become the great equalizer. they cross all ethnicity/education/location/wealth barriers -- even homeless people have cell phones these days.

However, if the telcos are trying to paint this as "look at this great market!" I'd like to point out that capitalism works by exploiting new growth markets. Sounds like what they're saying is that the market is almost saturated -- which if true (it isn't, but follow along) means that telcos are about to flatline on profits. No more YoY growth. This should be somewhat worrying to them.

Re:Sanity check

[buchner.johannes]

Speaking of sanity check, more people have cell phones than access to clean toilets. That, indeed, is crazy.

Re:Sanity check

[Shadow99_1]

See this depends highly on where you live. No one in my extended family gives cell phones to kids until they can buy one themselves and my older relatives my parents age often don't have cell phones at all and the ones that do certainly don't own smart phones.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, another sanity check failure is equating 2 billion TVs with exactly 2 billion users. I guess my 4 person househol only has 1 TV viewer!

Re:Sanity check

[CanHasDIY]

I honestly think they don't know how many individual humans are their customers.

As has been pointed out by others, "subscriber" in telecom parlance refers to the device, not the person who owns it. Ergo, if you have a work phone, personal phone, and one of those wireless hotspot devices, you count as 3 subscribers.

Re: Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that the numbers themselves are necessarily wrong, but they may not mean what the article implies.

Re: Sanity check

[tysonedwards]

Actually, the "computer" count in the article was based on CPUs (x86 Processors from Intel and AMD) manufactured and sold through according to their financials, and made an assumption of one processor per "computer". So, unless you built your desktops upon PowerPC, Sparc or ARM, you've been counted. And on the phone front, it also refers to "Active Lines of Service" (billed phone numbers). Would be interesting to see the breakdown on a per country basis (even if only the biggies) to see "active lines of service" / "total population" = x

Re:Sanity check

[coolsteve]

From the article:

MOBILE SUBCRIBERS END OF 2013
Total active mobile subscriptions or accounts -7.1B (was 6.7B in 2011, growth 6%)
Unique mobile users - 4.5 B (was 4.3B in 2011, growth 5%)
Actual mobile phones in use - 5.4 B (was 5.2B in 2011, growth 4%)

Not quite sure what that means... There are more active subscriptions than actual phones in use? Who is paying for a subscription without having a phone attached?

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice and all, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed your story. While we're storytelling, my grandfather doesn't have a cell phone, and neither does a friend of mine's child who just turned 1. On top of that, my cousin has three children, and none of them have cell phones. So now it seems as though there's a disparity. What else have you got? Maybe we can get back to 100% if you dig deep.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

It was mobile phones, not smart phones.

There are more mobile phones than people in a lot of European countries. I only have two.

In poorer countries, dual-SIM phones are more common. That's probably because different providers are competitive in different areas (international / local calls).

I have four active SIMs, although two (from visiting other countries) will probably expire within the next year. Who knows what they count?

Re:Sanity check

[dwheeler]

To be fair, the article itself does state that the 7.1B figure does not represent unique users or handsets in use. Instead, it says that "The number of unique users is now 4.5 Billion or 63% of all humans alive are actually users of mobile phones. The remaining 2.6 Billion accounts are second or third accounts for the same user... So 20% of us, one in five who has a mobile subscription or account, actually walks around with two phones (and at least two accounts)."

Re:Sanity check

[Immerman]

Actually mobile phones are quite common in the developing world, where they represent a minimal investment in infrastructure and an enormous profit advantage to a canny user. Probably nowhere near 100%, but I think I heard a number around 1-in-3 or so recently, and that's among the poor agrarian communities.

As for cost - I've personally used a mobile phone for ~$8/month for years ($25 prepaid card, expires after 90 days), or $0.28/day - and that's a prepaid plan in the US, which probably makes it one of the most expensive plans in the world. Granted that doesn't allow for a lot of usage, but I don't talk on the phone recreationally so it works out fine.

Re:Sanity check

[ausekilis]

It might actually be reasonable. There are a number of businesses out there that provide blackberries or other "work" cell phones. They could also be throwing in assorted iPads and other tablets, since they too probably have some 3g/4g plan associated with them. While I too doubt that it's 1 for 1, there are some areas where it might be 2 or 3 devices for one person. Who knows whether or not those folks make up for those ends of the world without cell towers.

Re:Sanity check

[Russ1642]

The richest countries would have to have ten devices per person ON AVERAGE to make up for the large portion of the population that doesn't have any, let alone clean toilets. I just don't see how that's the case.

Re:Sanity check

[RailGunner]

All you need is a hole in the ground. Besides -- think of all the water those toilets would waste. Holes in the ground are totally sustainable, and far more environmentally friendly. Won't you think of the children? Maybe we should have shovels for all... after all, can't have people killing and eating animals and using their skins for leather and bones for tools, can we?

Re:Sanity check

[gl4ss]

most of them(kiosk bought prepaids) have an activity time limit(topping it up extends it) and if you leave it to lapse they consider it deactivated(and can re-use the number).

Re:Sanity check

[Carrot007]

Indeed, they probably count all the smart electric meters out there too!

Re:Sanity check

[AvitarX]

Do they have land lines?

Or do they leave the kids with no phone at the house?

Re:Sanity check

[Chris Mattern]

Speaking of sanity check, more people have cell phones than access to clean toilets. That, indeed, is crazy.

But understandable. Building out and maintaining a wireless phone infrastructure is much easier and cheaper than doing so for a sewer system.

Re:Sanity check

[Chris Mattern]

Who is paying for a subscription without having a phone attached?

The first thing that came to mind was someone with a device that uses only the data connection.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

The linked article actually says 7.1B active (probably SIMs as suggested throughout the comments here?), 5.4B handsets in use (probably IMEIs?), and 4.5B unique users (seems hard to quantify without personal identifying information that can link individuals who use multiple carriers) so they are already accounting for 36% of humans not having phones, 20% of users having multiple phones, and 24% of active accounts not being in phones.

What I wonder is whether they consider every IMEI to be a handset (e.g. including embedded modems in other devices). I wonder what the aggregation period is that they used for identifying active accounts and equipment. Many pre-paid SIMs may see occasional use and then sit on a shelf until they expire a year or more later.

Re:Sanity check

[Opportunist]

The number is reasonable. The reasoning behind it is prime grade A BS, though.

I'd be interested just how many of these subscriptions are not to a human but to a machine. Computers that call their admins when they lose power. Surveillance systems that alert police or owner. And in many instances there's more than one just as a failover necessity. I dare say those alone will dwarf the "human" subscribers.

And I'm pretty sure with a bit of thinking one can come up with many other subscriptions that "belong" to some kind of automated system, supposed to be used only in very specific circumstances, rather than human subscribers having a calling plan to talk with each other.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA... the author says essentially that. Thanks for nothing.

Re:Sanity check

[locofungus]

In Europe, it's common for people who travel frequently abroad to have a sim for a local provider in each country they visit.

On some bits of the south coast of England, some people get better (or only) reception from France. They have a sim for France which they put in their phone when they're at home and a UK sim for when they're out to avoid accidental roaming charges when at home.

Re:Sanity check

[Anne Thwacks]

Dual-sim phones are common in most of the world. I have Sims for countries I am not actually in. One of them is currently on loan to someone in its native country.

Re:Sanity check

[TubeSteak]

Not quite sure what that means... There are more active subscriptions than actual phones in use? Who is paying for a subscription without having a phone attached?

In the developing world, it's very common for calling to be cheap in-network and expensive if you call someone on a different cellular provider.
The end result is everyone has two phones or dual sim phones.
Even triple and quad sim phones have been on the market for a while now.

It's not something that internationally known manufacturers were at all interested in,
but companies like Motorola, HTC, Samsung and Nokia have finally joined the Chinese in manufacturing them.

Re:Sanity check

[Ralph Wiggam]

Lots of people without indoor toilets now have mobile phones.

Re:Sanity check

[Bigbutt]

And security systems. In the last house the security company had a cell phone mounted in the panel.

[John]

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

I own ten different cell phone numbers: Mexico (phone+data), Germany (phone+data), Canada (phone+data), Slovenia (phone), Israel (phone), US (phone+data).

I own exactly two devices: an unlocked smart phone and an unlocked USB internet key.

All of the above plans are pay as you go, and yes, I travel a lot.

Re:Sanity check

[David_Hart]

It's got nothing to do with that. As the GP said, this is a total BS interpretation of the statistic. In wireless telco parlance, a "subscriber" is just an active SIM, not a person. So the total # of "subscribers" among mobile systems includes not just cellular phones but also cellular wireless enabled laptops/tablets/Kindles; all the cars out there with OnStar or something similar; every truck or car with a wireless fleet tracker; every cargo container or physical asset that has a wireless location/anti-theft tracker; every FedEx driver who has a cellular-enabled signature capture reader; every utility meter or security camera with a cellular data link... the list goes on and on. "7.1 billion" is probably more like 1/2 people with phones and 1/2 "things" with cellular connections.

This list likely includes law enforcement trackers, military devices (devices that are not using MIL sats), and whatever the security agencies are using these days. Also, don't forget mifi devices, airplanes, and probably a ton of other crap that we just don't know about.

Re: Sanity check

[petermgreen]

Note that "active lines of service" is likely to be significantly more than the number of phones in regular use since in many countries it costs very little to keep an old phone active on payg.

Re:Sanity check

[David_Hart]

I honestly think they don't know how many individual humans are their customers.

As has been pointed out by others, "subscriber" in telecom parlance refers to the device, not the person who owns it. Ergo, if you have a work phone, personal phone, and one of those wireless hotspot devices, you count as 3 subscribers.

Add a car with 911 service and a Kindle and you are up to 5 pretty quickly.

Re:Sanity check

[Lennie]

I've seen articles claim there are more devices connected to cellular than people.

So that would mean it's less than half.

Re:Sanity check

[scream at the sky]

That was my thought as well.

I'm personally "responsible" for a 500% skewing of the statistic.

1. work phone
2. ipad
3. android tablet
4. WiFi Hotspot
5. personal phone

Re:Sanity check

[0100010001010011]

But who cares when you're trying to compare network sizes?

They're pointing out that they have the power to shut off or control a large number of devices. Imagine if the GSM LTE protocol was worked such that anything on the network had to be capable of showing an ad from one of the telco's choosings?

It might even work in their favor to be able to target someone repeatedly. It's not about how many eyeballs you get to it's how targeted can you make your ad to the eyeball it does get.

Re:Sanity check

[thetoadwarrior]

How so? It doesn't meant everyone has a phone. Many people have multiple phones if only because they have a work one. Poor nations have been into mobiles for sometime due to a lack of landlines and it just being easier to deploy and not every nation gouges its customers like the US.

It's also why investors are kind dumb to keep expecting growth from mobiles. They are certainly in a state where it's far more realistic to expect them to maintain their position rather than grow especially with Android.

Re: Sanity check

[tepples]

It's not that the numbers themselves are necessarily wrong, but they may not mean what the article implies.

Quoted for truth. My fear is that certain decision makers would use this figure as an excuse to remove even more pay phones from service.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually quite reasonable. They never claim that 100% of people have cell phones. It's just that the typical /. derpster that likes to pretend that they're smart reads it that way so they can pretend to correct it.

Re:Sanity check

[Andrewkov]

And some of those mobile phones end up in toilets .. and the user says the phone stopped working and possibly has "water damage", while not mentioning that whole toilet incident...

Not that I'm speaking from experience..

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

> sanity check

Exactly! Nearly 3/4 of the employees where I work do not have carphones. A few still use pagers. Also, most of my friends and family do not have them either. I was the odd one when I bought my first carphone in 1993, and it took almost a decade before my first friend bought one of those things. I know in some places among some demographics like succer moms in their early 30s, carphones have nearly a 75% penetration rate, but in the real world, the silent majority just doesn't need or have those those things.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm black, and I have a toilet.

True, but his racist kind will never admit that you have one. That is their way. Looking at his other posts shows he is a racist oaf.

Re:Sanity check

[JoeMerchant]

We have 3 mobile phones in our house, and only 2 adults, though, if we didn't also have 2 kids, we might not feel the need for a "backup" phone.

Re:Sanity check

[Ralph Wiggam]

I assume you're trolling.

If not, it flush toilets require a massive amount of infrastructure spending that is not available in lots of places. Cell service can be rolled out to a large number of people much more easily. This if often the case in India and southeast Asia. Last time I checked, there were minimal Negros in that part of the world.

Re:Sanity check

[Hognoxious]

I'm black, and I have a toilet.

Pity you can't read.

Re:Sanity check

[MNNorske]

I personally account for:
- One person cell phone
- One work issued cell phone
- One medical device that has a cellular connection to a service provider
- One security system that has a mobile module in it
- Two kindles, one 2nd generation, and one DX both of which connect via cellular

So right there I account for six "subscriptions."

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't the point at all. The GP is claiming that "negros" (to use his term) are stupid because they would rather have an iPhone than have proper sanitation. I know a lot of Republicans make fun of them for their infant mortality rate. In their minds, Africans would rather have their own children die than give-up their iPhones. They're correct, but that doesn't make them right.

Re:Sanity check

[Richy_T]

Stats skewed by Saul Goodman and Michael Westen.

Re:Sanity check

[Ralph Wiggam]

And individual can't buy a flush toilet. An individual can buy a phone.

Re:Sanity check

[wisnoskij]

Ya, that is what I was thinking.
There is like 4 billion people in villages without power, let alone currency, in the world. They obviously do not have mobile phones.
Let alone babies, who since they cannot speak obviously do not own a mobile phone (I doubt that the ownership of mobile phones for the 1-12 demographic is very high at all) [and this is a very significant portion of the population].

I have no idea how many phones are currently activated, but I know the user base cannot be much over 50% of the current world population.

Re:Sanity check

[Richy_T]

That was true in most student houses I used to visit.

And that was pre-cellphones.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

The richest countries would have to have ten devices per person ON AVERAGE to make up for the large portion of the population that doesn't have any, let alone clean toilets. I just don't see how that's the case.

I'm from Africa, we all have cell phones here, because there is no infrastructure for land lines. Plus the copper wires are constantly being stolen by bad elements in society.

Re:Sanity check

[dkman]

I have a cell phone, an alarm system with a cell backup, a kindle (with whispernet - aka at&t behind the scenes), a verizon mifi hotspot for work. That's 4. If I had a second cellphone for work that would be another. For all I know the power meter and water meter might have cell connections for wireless reading (my house was only built 6 months ago).

The point is, they add up pretty quick. Newer Toyota/Lexus cars have the "console entertainment option" with pandora radio and such, those are cell connections. Tomtom's with traffic need to phone home somehow...

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Just wow. The KKK has really taken over this site. This "nig***s can't read" think is getting out of hand. It may have been amusing the first time it was posting, but you racists need to retire that crap.

Re:Sanity check

[praxis]

Do they have land lines?

Or do they leave the kids with no phone at the house?

Do either of those matter to the count of mobile phones in active use?

Re:Sanity check

[necronom426]

In our house we have 2 mobile phones, 5 TVs, and 16 working computers/consoles (mainly computers). These global numbers seem totally insane to me.

Re:Sanity check

[pr0fessor]

Who is paying for a subscription without having a phone attached?

I imagine that would be for a tablet, laptop, or other device... the numbers do appear suspect, but I have more cellular accounts than people {because of work and personal} in my house so...

Re:Sanity check

[Hognoxious]

This "nig***s can't read" think is getting out of hand.

I guess mentioning writing would be a little tactless?

Re:Sanity check

[mspohr]

I have three active smart phones, one dog tagg sim, two wireless access points, alarm system with cell modem.
That's only 7 but just shows how these things can add up.

BTW, stop showing your ignorance of "poor countries" with comments about clean toilets. Take this test and see how you do:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/10/...
(For the record, I didn't do very well on the survey.)

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'm curious what all these people that don't give children phones do. I hear about them all the time, but in my cohort basically nobody has a land line, so I am curious how that situation is handled.

Re:Sanity check

[MaskedSlacker]

No, he wasn't saying that. You're projecting.

He simply stated the fact that there are cell phones in places without indoor plumbing. It wasn't a judgement. It was an observation.

Re:Sanity check

[AK Marc]

What's racist? I walked through some of the "slums" torn down for the Beijing Olympics. They didn't have "indoor toilets", you had to leave your home to get to the nearest toilet. But they had plenty of mobile phones in that area.

That you are ignorant doesn't mean that the OP is racist. Why would you assume Black? That implies racism on your part against the Asians.

Re:Sanity check

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Most people connect to cellphone networks via a cellphone. No surprise in that. So interpreting the stats to mean mobile rulez! might not be far from the truth. However the implication that every single person in the world has a cellphone is obviously false. The supposed 1:1 ratio could easily be reduced by people owning multiple cellphones or cellphone would multiple SIM slots. This also makes the highly unlikely assumption that babies have transmitters attached to their hi-tech cribs.

Disclosure: I don't own a cellphone.

Re:Sanity check

[AK Marc]

Cohort? How many in your cohort have children old enough to use a phone responsibly?

If I had no home phone and left children home all the time alone (illegal here until the children are 12), I'd have the number for a few of the neighbors. If there was an emergency, I'd call a neighbor, and I'd expect the kids to do the same. But we have a land line, and spare cell phones (usually discards from work, but they'll dial 911 with no SIM), so I'd have no worry.

Re:Sanity check

[AK Marc]

Wasted water is a regional thing. Most of the places I've lived have had unmetered water because there was no water shortage. Doesn't sound so bad to me. Move out of the desert.

Re:Sanity check

[vomitology]

Oh really? http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ame...

Re: Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

He was talking about people living in 3d world countries that don't have indoor plumbing. You must of thought he was talking about the american negro. You know they are on welfare, paying $6 a month in rent in section 8 housing and getting $900 a month in foodstamps/welfare checks. They can't buy groceries or pay rent but. trey have iPhones and Galaxies.

I can see why you got so upset and defensive.

Re: Sanity check

[Badblackdog]

Nobody called anyone a n*****. Everyone is trying to explain to the "black guy" that it wasn't a dig on blacks. The "black guy" is overly sensitive or a schill for the race hustlers. Hey "black guy", I don't care if you are pink with purple polka dots, that has nothing to do with the conversation.

and oh yeah, GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!!

Re: Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

I have always had a cell phone and plan to get another one. So, the numbers have to be correct!

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

T-mobile will embiggen your prepaid card's expiration date to 1 year (instead of 90 days) if you've been with them for a year. I'm paying about $30/year for my mobile phone service. Hence my reluctance to switch to a smart phone with a data plan for $30 every 2 weeks.

Re:Sanity check

[Immerman]

>Hence my reluctance to switch to a smart phone with a data plan for $30 every 2 weeks.

Tell me about it. Though I am using an old unlocked smart phone, sans data plan, for all the other benefits - and a lot of my favorite hangouts offer wifi, so I don't often miss the data plan.

Hmm I had been eyeing t-mobile, so that's interesting to know, thanks. I just wish they had better service in my area.

Re:Sanity check

[AvitarX]

I'd say about 3 people I know in the 30-40 range have children 10+, so it's becoming an issue. We all are young enough to have ditched land lines and it is starting to become an issue.

Where I live there is no technical rule, but 12 gives you the presumption of not being a terrible parent if something does happen. When my girlfriend's daughter was 11 we decided it made more sense to let her read if we went to the store for a short trip (less than an hour) than to force her to tag along. We had a gut reaction of hell no, you don't need a phone when she asked for one for Christmas, but eventually, upon thinking about it, decided that it would be convenient for her to get in touch with us (for everyone involved) when she was somewhere else (be it home, or, at a friends, or even at after-care in school trying to arrange hanging out with a friend). Once that decision was made, we went with smart phone, because she could keep in touch with her international grandparents (via social media and email of photos of things in her life), and access to real information seemed like a good thing too, essentially, the same reasons adults use smart phones seemed to apply to children too.

Even if one is to use 12 as the cut-off for home alone, that's two years before credibly being able to afford a phone on one's own, I was honestly curious what somebody completely out of my social bubble's decision was, thanks.

PS, I don't know why I didn't think of no SIM 911 as an option, and at this point, something like skype (on wifi) on a no SIM card would do the trick for the at home situation, but that was less smoothe back then.

Re:Sanity check

[liamoohay]

Don't be so cynical. I say, let's aim for 200% coverage!

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of sanity check, more people have cell phones than access to clean toilets. That, indeed, is crazy.

But understandable. Building out and maintaining a wireless phone infrastructure is much easier and cheaper than doing so for a sewer system.

Not really. it sounds like those in power making money off the poor without actually building infrastructure to ensure longer, healthier, lives. That seems pretty psychopathic and no, I don't understand that.

Re:Sanity check

[legojenn]

God Damnit! I paid $279 for that model of toilet at Lowe's.

Re:Sanity check

[AK Marc]

Right now, the kids have iMessage on a WiFi iPad. They can text Mom's phone, but not get into too much trouble. It has Skype too, but we generally keep that off on our phones to prevent runaway data use. But mine are young enough to not be left alone at home yet. And we have old phones with no SIM they can call 911 on. They know what to call and when, so they can be left alone, but aren't.

Re:Sanity check

[Areyoukiddingme]

Oh really? http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ame...

For the super-pedantic among us, he obviously meant "buy and install a functional flush toilet alone." Yes you can go to Home Depot and buy the porcelain (if you live in the US or another developed country that actually has such products on the shelf). No, you're not going to be able to connect it to either a water supply or a sewer line where there aren't either of those things. And there are plenty of places in the world where there are neither.

Re:Sanity check

[Anonymous Coward]

well rem cheating spouses have hidden phones, lots of employers provide phones to employees dosent mean they drop theirs, and spies use lots of them, crimianl enterprises buy burner phones by the case

hel i have the account I use and the inactive prepay I just have to buy min to use again myself

Re:Sanity check

[Dabido]

I disagree. I think the number is correct for this reason.

I used to have an Indonesian fiancee. She and everyone else I knew there used to have two phones. A Blackberry and an Android/iPhone. She even made me buy a Blackberry so that she could BBM me all the time. Even the kids had mobile phones from about 10 years old onwards. So, we have a nation of 120 million people where those who have mobile phones usually have two of them. (Insert the old joke that if it wasn't for Indonesia RIM wouldn't be in existence). 99.68 mobile phones per 100 Indonesians. (Link at bottom)

When I was in Cambodia building houses in remote villages, the majority of people had mobile phones. (You could get an iPhone for half the price that it sells in the first world, and an iPhone rip-off for one third - and most other phones being very cheap by first world standards). In third world countries phone calls and texting is very cheap. (My ex-fiancee almost had a heart attack when she found out how much we get charged for phone calls in Australia). Most of the Cambodians I met didn't have TV's, Radios, land line phones or electricity, but they all had mobile phones (lacking electricity they could take their mobile phones to the local store for recharging. Many a bamboo hut store in the local villages had a generator and sold all sorts of mobile plans and batteries etc). Mobile phones are a cheap way to stay in contact with each other, especially when some of the family have moved to Phnom Penh for work, and others are on the Thai boarder working and the rest are still back in the home village. Plus, it also gives them internet access at a very cheap rate (and I used to have a number of Cambodian friends I kept in contact with who used their mobiles for Facebook or emails etc). But, another reason for mobiles being popular, is you don't need to be literate to be able to use one (with the average Cambodian education level being 3rd year primary). Cambodia have 92 mobile connections per 100 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Then, there are some Malaysian youths I meet in Malaysia who, for some reason, had one mobile phone but half a dozen sim cards (so 6+ subscriptions each). I didn't fully understand the reason for this, but part of it was coverage (when they couldn't always get a signal for one provider they'd switch to the sim card of another provider), they also had different phone numbers for different groups of friends/relatives etc (which is the bit I never quite understood). There were different rates on internet/talking/sms usage, so they'd switch SIM cards depending on whether they were going to Tweet something or talk to someone. I also suspect there was some 'social' aspect to it, 'he who has the most SIM cards wins'.

Then, there are all those people with a personal mobile phones and a work mobile phones.

So, to summarise: knowing that a considerable amount of people in the third world have mobile subsciptions, and that a majority of first world people have mobile subscriptions, and a large sum of people in the world have two or more mobile subscriptions, it isn't difficult to work out that it is entirely possible for us to have almost as many mobile subscriptions as there're people on earth. I would say, that if mobile adoptions keeps increasing in third world countries and more people (in general) end up having more than one mobile subscription, we'd probably end up having mobile subscriptions exceed the amount of people on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

What this means

[Presto Vivace]

for my profession (public relations) is that if you don't have a mobile strategy, you don't have a communications strategy at all.

Re:What this means

[BitZtream]

So in your profession (marketing, call it what it is), you're brain dead.

What this tells you is not that you 'must have a mobile strategy' ... it tells you that someone is lying.

But hey, why would you actually do anything other than arrogant self promotion as if your profession is even needed in the first place.

If you believe these numbers, you're a moron/idiot/fucking retarded SoB.

Re:What this means

[bluefoxlucid]

Public Relations is not marketing. Marketing deals with products; public relations deals with relation to customers and the public at large.

Marketing revolves around how to dress up Tide, how to convince the consumer they want Tide, what markets Tide aims at, what the advertising strategy is for Tide, and so on. These center around products, demographics, and how demographics connect to products.

Public relations instead revolves around Tide Co, how to convince the customer that Tide Co isn't an evil asshole company dumping sludge onto farmland in India, how much transparency Tide Co should have to keep customer trust, when Tide Co's ethics committee has come off its nut and is trying to create a PR nightmare by doing something that will reflect extremely negatively on Tide Co, etc. These center around the company, demographics, and the public at large.

The difference is subtle, but simple. Marketing tries to sell products. Public relations tries to make sure the company both actively creates rapport with the public (customers or not) and avoids offending the public. Good PR is about ethics and transparency; good marketing is about selling shit.

As an example: Apple has good PR. Their company is environmentally responsible, they're aware of their business operations, they communicate to the world at large through exciting and entertaining public appearances, and so on. Their marketing is less successful: more people bought Motorola, Samsung, and LG phones with Google software; who in the hell gets excited over Google and Samsung?

10 years ago, you needed an electronics communications strategy. It wasn't enough to market things on TV and in news papers; you needed to get customers on mailing lists, to tell them about what's happening in the company (not products, but exciting growth and customer outreach programs), and to give them exclusive insider deals or promotions or whatever. You couldn't just put "iPhone, SALE $299 REG $399" in the paper; you had to make the customer a part of your communications network, make them feel like you're talking specifically to them. Now it's mobile apps.

Re:What this means

[josquin9]

As a current PhD candidate in the field, I can actually speak with some measure of authority for a change.

Marketing is the umbrella concept. It includes everything having to do with generating a transaction in the marketplace, and includes such areas as: needs analysis and product development (because it's easiest to sell a product that people actually need), logistics (getting all of the raw materials and finished products to where they need to be), pricing models, brand management (how do we differ from our competition in the eyes of customers and potential customers), strategy (what markets should we be in, and how should we position ourselves relative to the competition), advertising and promotion. Most of what you refer to as Marketing would fall into the advertising and promotion categories.

"Public Relations" is one component of marketing because "good will" generally is needed to create the environment in which customers will engage in transactions with the company. Public Relations is related to the areas of advertising, promotion and brand management, and is usually distinguished by the fact that the message is not entirely within the control of the firm. Unlike advertising, the firm doesn't initiate and frame what people are talking about. Usually the firm is reacting to someone else's message, or engaging in an activity that they hope will be noteworthy in a positive way, so that others will spread the word that, as you said, they are not evil. Often PR costs a firm very little relative to an ad campaign, and, since it is moderated by a variety of third parties, information generated by PR activities may be more believable to many members of the public. This is why you see local business' names on the backs of little league jerseys and international corporations sponsoring charities, rather than paying those funds out as dividends and letting investors decide how much to give to which charities.

For the record, my background is in design, and my interest in Marketing falls into the product development function. I am one of the first to admit that there is a dark underbelly to the field that tends toward evil. My hope is to give ammunition and tools to the people who are trying to figure out what products would be useful and how they can be made economically, rather than the ones trying to sell whatever a firm can produce with a high profit margin with no regard to utility or hidden costs.

Re:What this means

[bluefoxlucid]

Logistics sounds like a function of project management. Pricing, brand, market strategy, these seem like marketing.

The whole of the public face is one big umbrella; but calling a PR guy a Marketing guy seems ridiculous. PR people are not the same as the Marketing people trying to sell you shit. There's always been a firm divide.

I guess we have marketing the products and marketing the company, so it's about the same.

Re:What this means

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not 7.1B smartphones. It's probably not even 1B smartphones.

Re:What this means

[BitZtream]

... You just spent all that text trying to convince me that the same thing was two different things.

Its not a subtle difference, its a marketing plow used to justify peoples existence. PR IS marketing, like it or not.

Re:What this means

[AK Marc]

Logistics is marketing, depending on the company. Wal-Mart requires 3rd party marketers come in and stock things (especially things like magazines). And the selection and numbers changes from week to week depending on expected sales, and the locations in the shelves will change as well. The merchandisers placing the product are 3rd party marketing people doing basic stocking. Larger retail shops put logistics under marketing, because too many of an item on shelves can make it look unwanted, and too few can lead to lost sales, both of which are more directly marketing issues. So merchandising does often fall under marketing.

They can go to 110% and beyond

[MetalliQaZ]

There are obviously huge numbers of poor and destitute that have no access to luxuries like mobile phones. Wealthier people are walking around with multiple mobile subscriptions. Either by work/personal accounts, or accounts for tablets and modems, or whatever. So I wonder how far past 100% they will be able to go? 150%? 200 even? It's a good time to be Samsung. Also hard to believe that HTC and Nokia are in so much trouble. Even a small part of 7 billion is a lot of business.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Dave Whiteside]

this dial goes up to 11

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[HBI]

Well, making shitty phones - either because the OS sucks (Windows Phone) or the hardware is flaky (HTC - the one HTC phone I owned was not particularly good) doesn't make it extremely likely that people are going to buy your phones.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[RDW]

In TFA, they claim 4.5 billion unique users, and that this number has only gone up by 5% since 2011.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Rob the Bold]

There are obviously huge numbers of poor and destitute that have no access to luxuries like mobile phones. Wealthier people are walking around with multiple mobile subscriptions. Either by work/personal accounts, or accounts for tablets and modems, or whatever. So I wonder how far past 100% they will be able to go? 150%? 200 even? It's a good time to be Samsung. Also hard to believe that HTC and Nokia are in so much trouble. Even a small part of 7 billion is a lot of business.

Interestingly enough, mobile phones aren't the luxury in the developing world we might think them to be, considering that more people have phones than have electricity*. They're used to replace obvious things, like wired communications, and less obvious services, like banking.

*WTF, right? How do you charge your phone?

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[tlhIngan]

There are obviously huge numbers of poor and destitute that have no access to luxuries like mobile phones. Wealthier people are walking around with multiple mobile subscriptions. Either by work/personal accounts, or accounts for tablets and modems, or whatever. So I wonder how far past 100% they will be able to go? 150%? 200 even? It's a good time to be Samsung. Also hard to believe that HTC and Nokia are in so much trouble. Even a small part of 7 billion is a lot of business.

Actually, the poor and destitute are getting cellphones too - it's one of the most transformative technologies that's hit Africa. It's allowed farmers and others to send and receive money (Africa was one of the first to have a payment service that works using SMS that's slowly spreading to Europe), keep in touch, and all that.

In fact, part of the whole "providing light and electricity" is to power phone chargers.

Then there are people in Europe and Asia who have 2 or 3 cellphones, as one person I know put it, "work phone, play phone, wife phone".

It's more of a quirk that in North America, we're quite reluctant to carry more than one phone. Everyone else I've seen has no problem with 2 or more phones at the same time.

Saturation would put this around 200% of population or so.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that the poor are actually a large part of the reason the market penetration is so much higher for phones than for televisions and computers.
Both televisions and computers require a lot of power. That takes a fairly robust infrastructure. Running communication lines is fairly expensive too. Even POTS can be prohibitive in many areas.
A cell phone on the other hand can be charged on a hand cranked generator or a tiny solar panel. And you can put up a simple cell tower for much less than a TV transmitter.
You'll get a few channels from the TV transmitter but the phone will let you call just about anyone and with even a fairly simple interface you can do things like fund transfers. In an area where the nearest bank is 100mile away that's a big deal.
It's not like most of those 7.1 billion phones are high end smart phones. Their the kind of phone that people in rich countries considered crappy 10 years ago but they get the job done.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[ripvlan]

Yes - I have two. A cell phone and a data-only device (iPad w/LTE). Do Kindles count as a mobile activation?

I wonder if cars count?! I know people with cars that use cell technology to phone home.

I read through the article and he draws a distinction between people vs handsets. I didn't see though if it was voice devices or whether hotspot/data-only devices make up that stat (there was discussion with regards to revenue breakdowns).

Now - will mobile data allow a way to skip over the cable-internet providers and offer real competition?

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Punto]

Ironically (not really but let's use that word) phones with multiple sim card slots are popular in 3td world countries. They're talking about active sim cards, not phones.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly do they expect to count "unique" users? I doubt the telcos give each other full details on every subscriber, and even then correlating identities is a hard problem. I have 7 active SIM cards across 5 telcos in 3 countries (all but one prepaid) - maybe more, I honestly don't know if a couple other long-unused ones were ever officially deactivated. Some don't even have any name attached to them - I bought them with cash. Among the others, my name is probably spelled in at least 4 subtly different ways (with or without diacritics, last name(s), and even using a different script). Good luck counting them as the one unique user that they represent.

Within certain countries (e.g. those that require identity verification for mobile signups, with a national ID card) this may be a lot more plausible, but once you start crossing national boundaries, all bets are off.

Re:They can go to 110% and beyond

[Verdatum]

I worked developing mobile telecom equipment for a company that mostly sells to undeveloped countries. This is sort of true in that undeveloped nations often don't have a land-line network in place, and it is far easier to set up a wireless network. So people are more likely to have a mobile phone than a stationary phone. However, impoverished people still don't have phones. It ends up being interesting because the standard Western usage models for phones don't work out at all. We can't calculate the number of available channels needed per subscriber the same way. Many mobile phones in these areas will be involved in active calls nearly 24 hours a day. The reason why is that people will buy a phone and account, and then hire people in shifts to stand on the street corner shouting out that they've got a phone. They then let people make calls for a markup.

I broke the dam

[Missing.Matter]

Tom, I'm currently ten miles outside of Beaverton, unable to get inside the town proper. We do not have any reports of fatalities yet, but we believe that the death toll may be in the hundreds of millions. Beaverton has only a population of about eight thousand, Tom, so this would be quite devastating.

Re:I broke the dam

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you're going to have a lot of wet beavers to deal with.

Winner determined by new sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't the winner of the "platform wars" be determined by which platform has better total adoption, not by new sales? If the new sales are driven by people re-buying the same platform, that's great for the manufacturer, but doesn't indicate which platform has better acceptance, does it?

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[ramper]

Platform being broken down by OS type or version?

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[danbob999]

Total adoption is hard to dertermine. Is a phone bought 3 years ago still used? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's only used as a remote control for the TV while the same person has a new phone. Does that count? Hard to say.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[amicusNYCL]

It sounds like it is an indication of what the dominant platform is going to be at some point in the future. If 80% of new sales are Android devices, and 15% are iOS devices, then that sounds like the installed base for Android is going to eclipse iOS in the next year or so. If Apple continues to release new phones regularly that fit a demand then that will swing back the other way.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[CanHasDIY]

Total adoption is hard to dertermine. Is a phone bought 3 years ago still used? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's only used as a remote control for the TV while the same person has a new phone. Does that count? Hard to say.

It's not hard to say at all - they're talking about active cellular subscriptions, i.e. active sim cards.

Does that 3 year old phone still have an active sim? Then it counts as a subscriber; if not, it doesn't.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[danbob999]

Some people have more than one SIM. Others use the same SIM in more than one device. Also, a smartphone can still can be usefull without a SIM card.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[tepples]

Yes, OS type. Mainstream smartphone platforms include iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[CanHasDIY]

Some people have more than one SIM. Others use the same SIM in more than one device.

My point is that "how many SIMs are active right now" is the metric telcos use to determine the number of subscribers. If the SIM isn't active (i.e., installed in a device and transmitting info), it's not considered a subscriber.

Also, a smartphone can still can be usefull without a SIM card.

Totally - I put Torque Pro and Track Recorder on my old Droid X, which now lives a new life as my dashcam.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[tepples]

Wouldn't the winner of the "platform wars" be determined by which platform has better total adoption, not by new sales?

You've recognized the difference between installed base and market share. Market share predicts how the installed base will move in the near future as devices are replaced. But even installed base doesn't tell the whole story. There's a perception that owners of devices running iOS are likely to spend far more money per person on mobile web sites and mobile apps than owners of devices running Android.

Re:Winner determined by new sales?

[danbob999]

I understand it's the metric for TelCos, because they care about the amount of paying customers, no matter what phone they use. It's even better for them to have customers paying for a SIM card and not even using it in a phone. However, to know who's winning the smartphone platform war, we can't rely on that, just like we can't rely on the number of Internet connections to ISPs to determine who's winning the desktop operating system war.

That's more than a little optimistic

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people on this Earth who do not have access to food or clean drinking water. There are tribes in the Amazon, among other places, who have no wish to join civilizatiion. To think that even 30% of the population of the planet has enough money to afford a cell phone and a subscription is hilarious.

Just waiting...

[ramper]

For the US Supreme Court to decide that each individually US activated device is a person AND can contribute to campaign finance.

I have 3 Android phones, 1 tablet, 2 dumb phones

[Anonymous Coward]

The device I do the vast majority of web browsing (informational, online shopping, etc.), mail reading and gaming on is a desktop PC. None of my phones' accounts has payment data.

I'll be the first

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a cellphone, either smart or dumb, nor have I ever had one, and nor do I ever plan to.

Re:I'll be the first

[Anne Thwacks]

I would love to be second to admit it. Unfortunately I have four phones on my desk at thsi moment.

I think his PC numbers are innacurate

[Anonymous Coward]

How would he know how many PCs the average family has behind a wireless access point?

I have 2 laptops, a netbook (until it died), three desktops and a linux server plus a boxee box (which might not count, because it is special purpose). So call that 6 PCs. My GF's house (non tech) has at least 2 laptops, a PC, and 2 Macs. So that's 15 between 4 people. My folks place, and they are as non-tech as it gets, has a bunch of my desktops and a laptop.

I think their PC numbers are pulled out of their arse as is the 100% penetration figure (blatantly incorrect). It's more like maybe 40% penetration. Lots of people have multiple cellphones (work and home) and some have work that requires SIM swaps so multiple, possibly many, accounts in different countries.

But hey, it makes a good story, just like any other attempt to bend statistics over a barrel for personal purposes.

they are used for alarm systems, telemetry too

[Anonymous Coward]

are we now counting how many GSM modems are deployed worldwide? because most burglar alarms use a mobile phone line as backup if the POST line gets cut, also almost all new elevators in europe have an alarm bell that connects you to an operator using a mobile phone line, telemetry systems also use a GMS modem and even a lot new cars can dial automatically 112/911 in case of accident .. there are millions of modems in use, street lights, industrial equipment, so what? and not even counting all abandoned pre-pay phones out there.

Re:I have 3 Android phones, 1 tablet, 2 dumb phone

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just you though. And one is quite a small sample size.

So?

[sunking2]

Just means we have a lot of meth dealers and people cheating on their spouses.

Re:So?

[Nukenbar]

I'm actually surprised you don't see more cell phones that allow for 2+ lines/sim cards.

Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[swb]

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Apple's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Apple faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Apple because Apple is dying. Things are looking very bad for Apple. As many of us are already aware, Apple continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Now where have I heard something like this before?

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Now where have I heard something like this before?

Netcraft confirms it.. oh hold up, my FreeBSD server is ready.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[gman003]

Yeah, but it's not like they can re-hire Steve Jobs to save them this time.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[BoRegardless]

Android is taking over but taking over what? The Yugos & Fiats of the phone world. And Android is, well, fragmented into a huge number of pieces and continuing to fragment & suffer a huge amount of malware-security & upgradability issues. The question is who will take over Android and turn it into a long term stable, safe platform is it Tizen?

Articles like this are sensationalism, pure and simple.

Apple knows that in the end hardware & the OS is only part of the "mobile phone industry". The UI, app developers, content, content delivery and ease of use are the extra pieces that make a smartphone.

People exist who still only want to place phone calls 90+% of the time and they couldn't care less about anything but a cheap phone, texting and a bit of email. They simply won't be able to buy a "feature phone" soon, because few of those will be made.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[Collective 0-0009]

Apple and it's users said the same thing when they were getting their ass handed to them in the PC market. Microsoft is the low end crap. It's fragmented over tons of hardware. It has security issues. Apple has a vertical structure that will win in the end.

It's hilarious for those of us who suffered through the Apple of the late 90's to read this regurgitation of talking points... well, hilarious for those of us that use Android. Two to five more years and Apple will be hitting lows like they did in the PC market. It's only a matter of time before the C-level guys figure out Apple isn't a status symbol anymore. That's when it tanks.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[Mojo66]

Android outsells iOS devices for quite some time (years?) now yet this means nothing to Apple, because a) Apple is not in the business of selling an iPhone to everyone and their dog, they're in the business of selling high-end, highly profitable devices to people who can afford them, and b) browser data shows actual internet usage numbers favour Apple at a ratio of 2:1 versus Android, so either Andriod users are too stupid to use their devices, or Android is too complicated/doesn't work, or they just get their Android for free and use it as a feature phone. In any case, it only shows that smart phones are a commodity now, which doesn't mean anything about the future of Apple.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[PapayaSF]

Apple and it's users said the same thing when they were getting their ass handed to them in the PC market. Microsoft is the low end crap. It's fragmented over tons of hardware. It has security issues. Apple has a vertical structure that will win in the end. It's hilarious for those of us who suffered through the Apple of the late 90's to read this regurgitation of talking points...

Dude, your comment reads like it's from the late '90s. Since then, Microsoft has been largely stagnant, their tablet and phone offerings largely a failure, the "inevitable" Windows monopoly doesn't look so inevitable any more, and OS X's share has grown. Macbooks are a very large percent of laptop sales, even to enterprise, and if you count tablets as computers, Apple's worldwide market share is about 19.5%, bigger than HP and Dell combined. Not to mention Apple getting the lion's share of profits.

So it looks like vertical structure is doing pretty well. As for mobile, sure, lots of Android phones are being sold, many (most?) to people who are entering the smartphone market. But more people are switching from Android to Apple than the other way around, so despite the drop in smartphone market share, Apple is quite well-positioned to continue growing.

Re:Tomi Ahonen confirms it...Apple is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Only an immediate 'pivot' into the Hot Grits and / or Petrifaction Ray market can save Apple now!

Bad assumptions...

[Bomarc]

Several bad assumptions were caught -- however one that I've not seen (yet) is the assumption that all the cell phone are "smart" (aka latest tech features form and function). I for one don't want one (if you gave it to me I'd quickly sell it before it was stolen). I also know of many people that don't want one. Many of us like our old desktop/laptop/server. I'm also not into the idea of sharing my phone when I want to watch TV.

Re:Bad assumptions...

[CanHasDIY]

In addition, "mobile subscriber" does not automatically equal a cell phone - you also have cellular enabled tablets, personal hotspot devices, portable cellular units for use with regular, analog telephones, etc. I have a good couple dozen of those in a closet, active and ready for deployment.

Re:Bad assumptions...

[Bite The Pillow]

Your assumption is bad. Ftfa, they took numbers on smart separately. The summary does not make a distinction. So you are objecting to a nonexistent slight.

The industry sold 1.8 Billion new mobile

phones just last year alone. And more than half of the new

sales are now smartphones (990 million were in 2013). In

the installed base, already 31% of all mobile phones in use

are smartphones (1.7 Billion units) and this year will sell

about 1.2 Billion more with roughly half going to replace

older smartphones and half going to first-time

smartphone owners.

Re:Bad assumptions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for posting form FTA, the reference was from the summary.

misleading totally

[Anonymous Coward]

A) if ten people i know dont have one vs one that does....what does that tell you....someone has a shit turd of phones activated for whatreason

B) the truer number is that 1.5 billion pcs

C) canada in 2006 when conservatives took over had 24 million net accounts...its now down to almost 16 million
thats 33% decline in canadian use of tech...WHAT TREND DOES THIS TELL YOU?

D) NSA spying???People love it right so they want more tech....RIGHT?

E) think aobut canada's foreign temporary slave labour program , a 22000 quarter canadain job loss and less money for all these gadgets....
YUP THERE IS ONLY SO LONG THIS CONTINUES....

misleading

[iggymanz]

about half the world's population has at least one mobile device. about half have zero mobile devices. Of course, you see shithead-targeting stats like "six billion people have access to a mobile device", which means exactly nothing.

Common situation: Work phone + personal phone

[dwheeler]

Lots of people I know have at least two phones. Heck, I personally have a "work phone" and a "personal phone". My company is a lot less worried about their data mixing with other stuff, especially when combined with additional sandboxing mechanisms like GOOD. It helps me, too. If some organizational data gets out, my employer can erase the phone without me worrying that they'll erase my stuff. Also, I'm a lot freer to install apps than I would be if my company controlled what could be installed on the device that also housed my company's data.

This isn't even unusual. Phones are small and cheap enough to have two. Software-based security mechanisms leak all the time; making things physically separate is far more effective if protecting data actually matters. Not everyone needs to do this, but it's fairly common when data confidentiality really matters.

Re:Winner determined by # of stupid people

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap people who don't care about technology and will put up with problems are the only ones using Android.

thank you for sharing

[Presto Vivace]

have a nice day.

Re:thank you for sharing

[BitZtream]

Ass kissing lip service where you're actually blowing people off isn't PR either, well I guess you can consider it bad PR as all you're doing is demonstrating that you don't actually give a shit. People aren't as stupid as you think.

God you must really suck at your job.

And thanks for the URL

[Anonymous Coward]

communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2014/05/lets-do-the-big-mobile-numbers-blog-where-are-we-in-mobile-stats-in-2014the-mobile-subscription-rate-is-at-or-very-very-nea.html

Seriously?

Replacing hyphens with CR/LF, we get:
lets [too few characters per line]
do [too few characters per line]
the [too few characters per line]
big [too few characters per line]
mobile
blog
where
are
we
in
mobile
stats
in
2014the
mobile
subscription
rate
is
at
or
very
very
nea.html

How many are actually in use?

[kheldan]

You can't convince me that's a real number. Would you really try to convince me that some kid in Africa who is starving to death has a cellphone? Assuming the local warlord didn't take it away from him, his parents would to sell for food. If on the other hand you want to try to convince me that there have been somewhere near that many cellphone accounts activated since the invention of the cellphone, and you want to also include pre-paid 'burner' phones that may have only been used a few times, then you might be able to do that. But 8.1B in active use? Bullshit. I'd wager there's maybe 1B in active use total on Earth.

Re:How many are actually in use?

[Shados]

A -lot- of people have several devices, probably enough to make up that number. Also, its accounts activated, not active accounts. Big difference. All the people who switch phones every 6 months inflate the numbers a lot.

But don't underestimate the amount of people who have multiple active phones, be it because they have a work black berry, or because they're tools that need the latest iphone and the latest galaxy Swhatever...at the same time....

Bad assumption!!!

[sentiblue]

This guy made a pathetic assumption!!! Just because there are 7.1B people, it doesn't mean there are 7.1B activations.... Out of that population count, there is a very good percentage (I don't know the number) of age 14 and below. And I again don't know the number here, but my guess is 90% of them don't have cell phones....

Apple bad

[AndyKron]

I'm glad to hear Android beat out Apple. Keep declining, assholes!

Re:Apple bad

[Anonymous Coward]

http://bgr.com/2014/03/17/ipho...

Number of devices per capita

[Jizzbug]

The figure is obviously wrong. First of all, many individuals have multiple mobile devices, at least work and personal. Some people have additional tablets with mobile subscriptions, etc. Also, there are mobile subscriptions for alarm systems, for fleet vehicle monitoring and telemetry, for GSM modems used by SMS txt msg providers, etc., etc.

There may be nearly as many mobile device subscriptions as there are humans now, but it is definitely not 1:1 per capita worldwide.

Too Many Comments from the Basement

[buravirgil]

I know this is /., but the article doesn't claim every inhabitant of planet earth has a mobile. The guestimates in this thread based on a sense of socioeconomic class and consumer envy are pathetic. I'm fortunate enough to have worked in remote areas of the Middle East and Asia and saw the same phenomenon of "tech-neck" among agrarian cultures as I had seen in, say, Oakland or LA-- and that was some five years ago. No technology has spread as rapidly and pervasively -- including fire and the wheel.

Re:Too Many Comments from the Basement

[Freshly Exhumed]

Agreed. You can lead /.ers to TFA but ya can't make 'em read it.

Re:Too Many Comments from the Basement

[iggymanz]

but articles like this should mention the truth that half the people in this world do not have mobile devices at all

Also, everyone has 2.4 legs and owns a hyena.

[Arancaytar]

Averages are funny like that.

Not a BS number

[mcrbids]

That there are as many active mobile devices as there are people doesn't mean that everybody has a mobile device. And the reality is that mobile devices actually are ubiquitous, and the 7.1 billion number understates their ubiquity, since many devices are wifi only.

I type this on my Linux laptop that I use for work, but outside of some gaming, mobile devices have taken the crown for personal use. Mostly, I browse on my smart phone. I schedule on my smart phone. I email on my smart phone. My "TV" is actually a Google TV Stick running android. I frequently take a tablet with me when I travel, just so I can plug the hotel room HDMI into it and watch what I want, rather than "what's on".

Mobile devices are everywhere, and still growing fast, and have completely up-ended the computer marketplace. This trend will continue and even if you knock the number in half, it still stomps the every loving *!@#$* out of the classical desktop "computer".

Re:Not a BS number

[mbone]

I type this on my Linux laptop that I use for work, but outside of some gaming, mobile devices have taken the crown for personal use. Mostly, I browse on my smart phone. I schedule on my smart phone. I email on my smart phone. My "TV" is actually a Google TV Stick running android. I frequently take a tablet with me when I travel, just so I can plug the hotel room HDMI into it and watch what I want, rather than "what's on".

It's funny, but I dislike using my phone for basically all of those things, and so I don't. IMHO, typing on a smart phone is much like trying to assemble Christmas toys while drunk; not pleasurable, and noteworthy mainly for the occasional disaster it causes.

On the other hand, if you go to places like Mumbai or Beijing, everyone appears to have a cell phone, and appears to use it constantly, so I can believe the overall number (well, to within a factor of 2 or so for hype inflation).

Re:Not a BS number

[larryjoe]

It's funny, but I dislike using my phone for basically all of those things, and so I don't. IMHO, typing on a smart phone is much like trying to assemble Christmas toys while drunk; not pleasurable, and noteworthy mainly for the occasional disaster it causes.

I agree. I only use my phone for situations where a PC is unavailable because the PC user interface is almost always vastly preferable. Yes, Angry Birds is better with a touchscreen, but it's the exception. A physical keyboard is so much better than a virtual keyboard in terms of speed and annoyance. A mouse with buttons has much greater speed and utility than a touchscreen. A 24" screen is much more readable than a 5" or 10" screen, and web page formatting is more usable.

The sole redeeming value of the phone is its mobility.

Re:Not a BS number

[mcrbids]

Stale thread is stale. But I bought a bluetooth keyboard for my phone and love it!

If I want to type srs bsns then I unfold the keyboard, which casually fits in my shirt pocket. Unfortunately, this model of keyboard is no longer manufactured and the price appears to have ballooned as a result. (When I bought mine a year or two ago, it was $40)

Phones != unique users

[damn_registrars]

The biggest problem with this is the number of people with multiple phones. I know many people who have their personal phones as well as phones from their employer for work.

Re:Phones != unique users

[Anonymous Coward]

I know many people
and they're all voices in your head that you give life to via your multiple sock puppet accounts.

LOVE AND KISSES... and I expect multiple JE's to be written about me you beautiful OCD dickweed..

Red

damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot

Devices NOT users

[Algae_94]

From the summary:

Sure. We are now at 2 Billion TV sets in use globally. But mobile has 3.5 times users.

It is clear that they are confusing devices with users. TV sets can have multiple users per device, users can have multiple mobile devices a piece. Its an interesting bit of trivia that there are as many mobile devices as people, but to make too many conclusions from this is a mistake.

Proportions lesson

[Catbeller]

Apple is not "declining". They are growing. (They also make most of the profit.) Android is growing fast, Apple is growing fast. Both statements can be true at the same time. Both can win. This is not a zero-sum game. Your opponent doesn't have to die so that you can live.

OP3 - OPPP - One Phone Per Person

[KreAture]

And then it was official.
From this point on we just need to work on evening the distribution.

Call before you dig

[tepples]

All you need is a hole in the ground.

Good luck holding it while you call before you dig.

Re:Call before you dig

[RailGunner]

LOL... you know the thing that bothers me about that toilet thing -- the people who "don't have access" to clean toilets only need access to them once a week or so because they're starving.

Instead of advocating free toilets maybe they should advocated feeding these people so that they need a toilet.

The return of pay phones

[tepples]

people will buy a phone and account, and then hire people in shifts to stand on the street corner shouting out that they've got a phone. They then let people make calls for a markup.

Is there something that keeps people from just installing a pay phone that connects to the cell network?

Re:The return of pay phones

[Verdatum]

Nothing in particular would prevent such a thing, but it would require specialty equipment that tends to be difficult to acquire unless you're a phone company, and even then, it requires a partnership with whoever owns the property you put it on. This doesn't require anything special, just a phone.

US cell carriers' billing structure

[tepples]

It's more of a quirk that in North America, we're quite reluctant to carry more than one phone. Everyone else I've seen has no problem with 2 or more phones at the same time.

I wonder how much of this quirk arises from the incumbent carriers' established billing practices, such as a $35 per month minimum charge to keep service on an Android phone (source: virginmobileusa.com). Want cellular voice and only Wi-Fi data? Too bad.

This is pretty stupid

[ruir]

I have changed numbers in the last two years, maybe 3 or 4 times. In my last number change, I also switched operators too. My wife owns at least 4 different active numbers. My sister and my bother-in-law, between them have 4 mobile numbers... So between the 4 of us, we already own 12 numbers... It is pretty common people carrying two numbers to shave costs calling between operators, or then carrying the professional and the personal phone. So correlating numbers and customers is pretty dumb, or very convenient.

Sat and cell usage caps are harsher

[tepples]

Now - will mobile data allow a way to skip over the cable-internet providers and offer real competition?

Not until mobile drastically increases its capacity. Currently Xfinity (home Internet and TV service by Comcast) has a cap on the order of 300 GB per month, compared to about 10 GB per month for comparably priced satellite or cellular data plans.

Can't get through a single day..

[Anonymous Coward]

without this kind of malarky showing up on slash what?

Putting up with Android problems

[tepples]

Some people use Android because they do care about technology and because they don't want to put up with problems inherent in iOS, like these:

Web form content type limits Web forms in Safari for iOS support only picture and video uploades, and applications installed on a device have no way to make documents created with those applications available for uploading. (Droid does what iDon't: Android has both a "content provider" concept and a file system.) Web browser exclusivity Want to get around it by using another browser? Too bad. Apple has banned other web browsers that aren't either A. Safari wrappers or B. remote desktop to a rendering proxy. (Droid does what iDon't: Firefox.) System configuration exclusivity Want to use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to troubleshoot a wireless local area network? Too bad. Apple refuses to provide the APIs to make that happen. (Droid does what iDon't: WiFi-Where.)

Each platform has its own problems up with which the user must put. My particular set of tolerable problems happens to match Android. BasilBrush's happens to match iOS.

Re:Putting up with Android problems

[BitZtream]

There are easily just as many nitpicky problems with ANY Android device, let alone just the problems with the shitty low end devices that really shouldn't be running fat OS like Android.

To pretend iOS users don't care about technology just makes it clear you're an ignorant fanboy who thinks you're the only one who knows how technology should be used.

It really makes you look stupid and inexperienced to say things like you just have.

Use the right tool for the job, Android is a mess in so many ways but you're just going to ignore than and rant on about how your hammer is the best tool ever made, even when grandma just needs a letter opener.

Re:Putting up with Android problems

[tepples]

Each platform has its own problems up with which the user must put.

There are easily just as many nitpicky problems with ANY Android device

So we begin in agreement.

Some people use Android because they do care about technology

To pretend iOS users don't care about technology

Where did I pretend that? There's a big difference between saying "some Android users do care about technology" and saying "most iOS users do not care about technology".

Use the right tool for the job

But is iOS is the right tool for overwhelmingly more jobs than Android?

even when grandma just needs a letter opener

And sometimes a dumbphone or a land line is the right tool for the job.

On the other hand, some people's needs grow over time. I don't imagine that most people enjoy having to wait up to two years (typical mobile phone subsidy period in North America) to run an app just because no app in that category is available on their current platform. If you can show how Windows Phone or iOS has more room for growth than Android, I'd be interested.

Cost per active line

[tepples]

I'm not surprised, given the proliferation of plans with "unlimited nationwide talk and text" in Slashdot's home country. It costs $X per month to have one active line and $2*X per month to have two active lines, possibly slightly less if they're on one bill.

Re:Cost per active line

[BitZtream]

In slash dots home country, most providers charge $5 or $10 for an additional line, not 2x. My wife's line costs me $10/month, where as mine costs $60 with or without hers. Not really sure where you get your information but you're wrong.

Multiple accounts - one person

[Anonymous Coward]

My car, my personal phone, my company phone and my tablet all have their own sim cards - and own subscriptions.

Admittedly only 2 of them have ever seen a phone call, but they are still probably considered in this data.

Non-cell numbers

[dkman]

Where do the numbers come from for computers and televisions?

I, for one, have an 18 year old television that still worked and was still receiving cable. I assume that they are looking at units sold and assume they are out there for X years. So the numbers are BS, though they may be "accurate enough".

I have 6 computers, 3 tablets, and 2 computers for work. I may not use them all regularly, but I assume they're not all counted. I also assume those numbers aren't shocking on /. but aren't common in the general population.

I addressed the cell numbers above, and don't have a problem with them. Cellular enabled devices and active sims add up.

I think I know why it's so high

[viperidaenz]

Because they'll be counting data sim's people put in their tablets, car phones, and all the pre-paid accounts that have been long abandoned.
There's also the business + personal phones and some people have different phones for different networks because it works out cheaper.

In New Zealand we've got a population of ~4.4M and ~5.5M mobile subscribers. (based on Vodafone's 42% market share claim with 2.3M subscribers)

Bovine excrement.

[jpellino]

"The mobile subscription rate is at or very very nearly at 100%"
Wow. Such an incredibly erroneous and misleading conclusion.
3.5 million people, 3.5 million ovaries. Must mean the subscription rate of ovaries is 100%.
And to think that I saw it on Mulberry - er Slashdot.
If by the author's own admission it's not 1:1 then WHO CARES.
When everyone on the planet has a way to communicate faster than walking and telling someone, THAT WILL BE NEWS.

Loitering

[tepples]

Nothing in particular would prevent [a cellular pay phone], but it would require specialty equipment that tends to be difficult to acquire unless you're a phone company

I was looking for something contractual in carriers' TOS. Otherwise, there might be a market for a cellular pay phone based on a commodity radio module like that used in the PiPhone. How is payment done in the arrangement you describe? Just cash? Besides, allowing someone to loiter "on the street corner shouting out that they've got a phone" likewise "requires a partnership with whoever owns the property you put [him] on", does it not?

Re:Loitering

[Verdatum]

I've never read a ToS carefully enough to know if it is in violation or not. Plus, ToS can vary by both provider and the laws in that country. Traditionally, these people are just dealing in cash. Though I suppose these days nothing particularly prevents someone from using a modern card reader, besides the fact that people in these areas are less likely to have a line or credit or a bank account. The street corner is usually public property, so permission is not exactly needed. And if a storefront or land owner hassles the person, they can always just move to the next corner. Doing business on public property might be illegal in that area, but, I guess bribes or keeping an eye out for law enforcement might be involved.