2013 Global Mobile Survey

Mobile’s reach is greater than ever, and its continuing adoption is driving not just consumer behaviors but also business strategy. More and more companies are declaring that they are going mobile first. Yet what is mobile? It is an industry that has phenomenal momentum and scale, but it also one that is increasingly diverse. There are multiple standards, with 4G coexisting with 3G and 2G. Smartphones now ship over a billion a year, but the smartphone category describes a broad range of capability, price and capability. Short messaging service (SMS) used to be the only way of exchanging text between devices, today there are a rising range of options for doing so.

The State of the Global Mobile Consumer report analyses four of the key sub-trends we see happening in the mobile industry: 

Multiple multipliers: drivers of data traffic

Device proliferation: consumers are using more portable devices than ever, with a growing number of these being mobile Internet connected. With continued growth in both the number of users and the number of connected devices per user, traffic volumes are very likely to continue to grow rapidly.

Baby boomers become smartphone surfers

The rise of the new generation of smartphone users: the baby boomer which may not exploit the smartphone’s full breath of capabilities. As the base of smartphones continues to expand into the older age groups, patterns of device usage are likely to stratify.

LTE data surge raises the stakes for network-sharing

LTE raises the importance of network sharing. Strong customer satisfaction with LTE services should encourage others to take up LTE and this in turn should lead to rising data volumes. In order for the deployment and operation of dense LTE coverage to be sustainable, operators may need to revisit options for network sharing.

Messaging: reasons to be cheerful

The evolution of mobile messaging: whereas ten years ago, two services represented essentially 100 percent of communication usage, today consumers make regular use of literally dozens of services, apps and content providers. The change is a milestone on the road toward a new carrier business model, focusing on networks and data.

We hope you find these insights from the Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey useful and we welcome further conversations based on the full data sets.