Mobile Industry Revenue Estimated to Exceed $1.5 Trillion in 2012

The mobile industry just recently surpassed the trillion dollar revenue mark a few years ago and, according to analyst Chetan Sharma, it’s expected to exceed $1.5 trillion—over 2-percent of the global GDP—in 2012.

Globally, mobile subscriptions finally reached the six billion mark by the end of 2011. To put in perspective the rapid growth of the mobile space, it took 20 years to hit the first billion subscriptions, but only 15 months to reach the last. India and China lead the way, combining to add 75 million subscribers every month. China alone has over one billion subscribers and they’re the first country to reach that milestone.

Growth is surging thanks to smartphones, and the US leads all the major markets with 69-percent of sales consisting of these devices. Many operators also anticipate smartphones to exceed 90-percent of device sales in 2012. With a wide range of smartphones being developed—from entry level to high-end devices—they’re becoming more and more accessible to consumers across the globe.

It’s pretty obvious that the mobile industry will continue to expand at a staggering rate with the recent emphasis on “going mobile”, and this isn’t some sort of passing fad that will soon go away. In turn, the revenues reaped by the companies involved—from vendors to operators—will continue to soar.

Voice, which has long been the bread-winner of mobile revenue, is expected to dip below the 50-percent threshold in 2012, signaling a shift in the mobile landscape. Mobile data alone is expected to take up 28-percent of the total global revenue, which would come out to roughly $400 billion. 53-percent of that total will come from non-messaging revenues—apps, web browsing, gaming and streaming media—finally overtaking traditional messaging like SMS and MMS.

Here are some impressive industry milestones listed by Sharma showcasing the power and growth of mobile:

• Apple captures 70% of mobile device profits – defies gravity, obliterates competition
• Apple mobile appstore downloads exceed 25 Billion, 100 Million on Mac – can you spell domination
• Samsung ends Nokia’s 14 year reign as the device king – brutal execution
• Android 300M activations – Juggernaut
• Paypal does $7B in mobile transaction volume
• Square does $5B in commerce transaction volume
• Google > $5B in mobile revenues
• Microsoft revenues from Android > Windows Mobile
• Pandora’s 70% usage is on mobile, Twitter’s 60% of the usage is on mobile – heading towards a mobile-dominant world
• Facebook Instagram Acquisition $1B – Mobile only acquisition to beef up mobile strategy
• Angry Birds approaches a billion downloads
• ESPN does 3.1 billion minutes on mobile in 3/12 – Mobile is where the action is
• Skype traffic over 150 billion minutes – OTT pressure
• KPN messaging volumes decline 15% YOY – OTT pressure
• Mobile Security threats grow 7x in last two years, Android threats up 3000% – Mobile IS IT
• Cisco BYOD ratio – 70% (up 52% in 2011) – BYOD is creating new opportunities for vendors
• US data traffic over 130 quadrillion bytes/month in 2011 – Data traffic 2X YOY, welcome to the yottabyte era
• Fandango sells quarter of its ticket on mobile – commerce is happening
• Expedia does > $1B in mobile commerce – see above
• Microsoft Nokia Multi-Billion partnership – It takes two to tango
• Google Motorola $12.5B – IP becomes key to strategy
• Nortel Patent acquisition $4.5B – IP becomes key to strategy
• 40% of Kenya’s GDP comes from mobile money – impact of mobile is pervasive
• Millennial Media IPO at $2B – first public market validation of the mobile advertising space

At this rate, who knows how large the mobile industry can get—the sky is the limit.

[via Tech Crunch and Chetan Sharma]