Global mobile ad spend nearly doubled to $19.3bn in 2013

"IAB Europe, the U.S. IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and IHS Technology revealed today their global figures for mobile advertising revenue which soared a massive 92% to €14.6bn ($19.3bn) in 2013 from €7.6bn ($10.1bn) in 2012, confirming the adoption of mobile as an essential element of the marketer’s toolkit.
Mobile display shows the highest growth at 123.4% and mobile search, up 92.1%, flourishes mainly driven by smartphone penetration as affordable data plans fuel location-based search-on-the-go. Messaging, itself up 19.4%, might not be sharing as much robust growth due to migration from operator-owned messaging services (e.g. SMS and MMS) to alternative platforms. Successful messaging innovation, particularly in Asia, reinforces the commonly held industry belief that mobile players need to be ahead of the curve.
Search remains the dominant segment representing 48.9% of the total global mobile advertising revenue in 2013 at €7.1bn ($9.5bn), while display approaches parity with a 41.5% share at €6bn ($8bn), and messaging takes a 9.6% share at €1.4bn ($1.9bn).
The share by region of the global figure of €14.6m ($19.3m) for 2013 is:
• North America: 41.9% (€6,099m / $8,100m)
• Asia-Pacific: 38.9% (€5,666m / $7,525m)
• Europe: 17.3% (€2,519m / $3,346m)
• Middle East & Africa: 1.2% (€170m / $225m)
• Latin America: 0.7% (€109m / $144m)
2013: Global mobile advertising revenue: share by region
Growth year-over-year was strong across the board, led by Latin America, which saw a massive 215% leap over the 2012 figures. North America and Europe also saw major increases
• Latin America – 215%
• North America – 122%
• Europe – 90%
• Asia-Pacific – 69%
• Middle-East and Africa – 45%"
Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 13th August 2014

Digital Landscape - MENA & Turkey

Social, Digital & Mobile in The Middle East, North Africa & Turkey from We Are Social Singapore

An average of 117 searches per searcher were made in June 2012

"Evaluating search growth centers around two primary metrics:
Number of Searchers
Total Searches Conducted
From these numbers, we can then derive a variety of consumption metrics such as Searches per Searcher and Searcher Conversion. For this analysis, I used comScore qSearch, which is based on a two million desktop/PC based searcher panel covering more than 170 countries.
In June 2012, 1.47 billion searchers conducted 173 billion searches (with year-over-year increases of 10% and 12%, respectively), making for 117 searches for every searcher on the planet. If you were to add in the number of searches now performed on mobile devices and tablets, the numbers would be even more staggering. Social Media may get most of the news clippings lately, but search activity is still one of the most popular activities on the Internet.
Search is a relatively mature online activity that will not continue to experience double digit growth in new searchers forever, so the ongoing growth opportunity would appear to be in the number of searches each person conducts. But 117 searches per searcher worldwide already seems like a lot, doesn’t it? However, when you break this number down by different regions and countries, you begin to get a better sense of where the search growth will come from in succeeding years.
While Europe and Asia Pac have the highest number of searchers and generate the highest overall volume of search queries, the search utilization by region shows a different story with Latin America taking the gold:
Latin America: 162
Europe: 135
North America: 129
Asia Pacific: 97
Middle East-Africa: 92"

Source:  Press release from comScore, 5th September 2012

Note - Desktop searches only

Mobile Search and the Olympic Games

Google have looked at some stats across the world, combining tablet and mobile to create this chart.

Click to enlarge

Source:  Google Mobile blog, 6th August 2012
Note - lots more background at the original link

Mobile ad spend by region and format, 2011

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Source:  Data from the IAB and HIS Screen Digest, reported by ClickZ, 6th June 2012

3G penetration by market Q4 2011

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Source:  Data from Informa & WCIS+, taken from Mary Meeker & Liang Wu's Internet Trends presentation 2012, KPCB, May 2012

Over 80% of Nigeria's Facebook users access via mobile

"According to Socialbakers, the countries with the highest Facebook mobile penetration are:
Nigeria: 81.2 percent
Brunei: 80.8 percent
South Africa: 80.5 percent
Malawi: 78.3 percent
Papua New Guinea: 78.3 percent
Namibia: 76.7 percent
Botswana: 76.4 percent
Zambia: 73.9 percent
Japan: 72.1 percent
Singapore: 71.8 percent"
Source:  AllFacebook, 8th May 2012
Note - this means the number who access via mobile as a percent of the total users - but the people accessing via mobile may also access on a desktop device.

Smartphones account for 44% of all handsets in UAE, 55% in Saudi Arabia and 42% in Jordan

"Arab Advisors new surveys reveal that Smartphones constitute 43.7% of total cellular handsets in the UAE, 54.6% of total handsets in Saudi and 41.6% in Jordan.
A new Arab Advisors Group’s survey of cellular users in the UAE reveals insightful details on the smartphones adoption and usage patterns in the UAE. The survey also probed general cellular usage habits, smartphones awareness in addition to tablets availability among cellular users in the UAE. This survey comes on the heals of a similar survey in Jordan. Full results of a similar Saudi survey will be out in October 2011.
The Arab Advisors Group concluded a ground breaking survey of cellular users in the UAE probing smartphones adoption and usage. The survey revealed that Blackberry leads with 51% share of smartphones operating systems (calculated based on handsets’ brands). iOS (iPhone) ranked second while Symbian came in third. Smartphone users prefer the English language for their applications. Over 300 delegates will discuss and deliberate the ongoing trends in the regional smartphone ecosystem at Arab Advisors’ Smart Handheld Summit which will be held on December 5 & 6, 2011 in Dubai. Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is the Strategic Summit Partner. Qualcomm is sponsoring the summit which is also supported byAppsArabia, Microsoft, nPario, Teletimes, DVV, ITP CommsMea, MediaME and Telecom Watch."

Source:  Press release from the Arab Advisors Group, 19th October 2011

3G penetration by market, Q2 2011

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Source:  Data from Informa & WCIS+, taken from Mary Meeker's Internet Trends presentation 2011, KPCB, October 2011

18% of internet users access solely through a mobile connection

"Mobile is increasingly the primary platform for internet access, according to today’s Global Consumer Survey (GCS) report from MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce.
Based on research conducted among over 8,000 respondents in nine countries across five continents, the MEF GCS found that 72% access the mobile internet on a daily basis with 18% no longer using fixed line internet access whatsoever. In each individual market, the number of consumers accessing the mobile internet daily is higher than the number accessing fixed-line internet."

Source:  Research by the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)'s Global Consumer Survey, reported in a press release, 12th October 2011

See an extract here

The markets surveyed were:  Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, UK & US

Africa accounted for 12% of all net new mobile subscribers in Q1 2010

"Africa accounted for 12 percent of global mobile net additions in 1Q 2010, adding 20.1 million new subscribers to the world population of mobile users, and giving Africa a total of 480.2 million subscribers. This is a rather neat 10.0 percent of the some 4.82 billion mobile subscribers estimated to exist at the end of March 2010.
By comparison the Middle East accounted for 5 percent of global mobile net additions, clocking up some 8.1 million in the first quarter. Together Africa & the Middle East therefore accounted for 17 percent of global net additions.
According to research by The Mobile World, 1Q 2010 saw net additions of 168 million, taking the total to 4.82 billion. China and India remain the world's largest, and accounted for almost 28 percent of the global total at the end of 1Q 2010, but their contribution to the net quarterly gain in connections was double this at 56 percent. The USA accounts for 3 percent of net additions: the same percentage as Brazil and Russia combined.
With the world population at around 6.8 billion, the global mobile penetration rate stood at just under 71 percent at the end of Q1 2010. Africa, by comparison, had a mobile penetration of 47 percent, whilst the Middle East hit 86 percent."
Source:  Worldwide Mobile Market Growth, Africa and Middle East Telecom Week, July 2010

Digital music and video distributor The Orchard reaches more than 1.2 billion mobile customers across Asia

"Today, The Orchard, a global leader in music and video distribution and comprehensive digital strategy, announced that the company is now reaching more than 1.2 billion mobile customers across Asia through distribution partnerships with top mobile operators and licensors in China, Japan, Korea, India, and the Middle East.
In Japan, The Orchard has direct agreements with Music.JP and Music Airport, as well as a partnership with the largest record label Avex, which brings Orchard content to Label Mobile, a mobile-content provider owned by leading Japan record labels. In The Middle East, The Orchard has an agreement with Viva, which provides The Orchard access to top mobile operators like Orange, Vodafone, and Mobinil. In Korea, a deal with NeoWizBugs supplies content to SK Telecom and third-party mobile music sites including Bugs, Melon and Dosirak. A deal with ZTEMT China brings The Orchard's content to China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom subscribers. Finally, through its partner label Saregama, the Orchard also reaches the largest mobile service providers in India, such as Vodafone, Air Tel, Reliance, and BSNL. In total, The Orchard taps over 1.2 billion mobile users in the Asian mobile market."
Source: Press release from The Orchard, 26th May 2010

68 Percent of Saudi girls drop their last name on Facebook

"Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat - Are you on Facebook under your real name? This is the question that continues to haunt a large number of Saudi Arabian women, despite the fact that internet social networking sites rely primarily on factual personal information. However a recent study carried out in Saudi Arabia shows that 68 percent of Saudi girls prefer to withhold their family name due to the sensitivity of this information, in comparison to just 32 percent of girls who appear on Facebook under their own full names. The study revealed that 16 percent of girls polled were members of Facebook under aliases or false identities. As for the Saudi Arabian boys who use Facebook, the study showed that 60 percent of those questioned were members of Facebook under their own full name, with just 4 percent appearing under an alias or a false name."
Source: Asharq Alawsat, 19th January 2010