There were 6 billion mobile subscriptions at the end of 2011

"The Measuring the Information Society 2012 report also identifies countries which have made the most progress when it comes to ICT development. These dynamic ICT markets are mostly located in the developing world – evidence that many developing countries are catching up quickly in efforts to bridge the so-called ‘digital divide’. Strong performers include Bahrain, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia.
In the mobile sector, developing countries now account for the lion’s share of market growth. Mobile-cellular subscriptions registered continuous double-digit growth in developing country markets, for a global total of six billion mobile subscriptions by end 2011. Both China and India each account for around one billion subscriptions.
Mobile broadband continues to be the ICT service displaying the sharpest growth rates. Over the past year, growth in mobile-broadband services continued at 40% globally and 78% in developing countries. There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide."
Source:  Press release from the ITU, 11th October 2012
Note - This does not mean that 6 billion people use mobile phones, as some reported.  Many people have more than one sim card (work phone, personal phone, iPad, etc)

Mobile accounts for 25% of YouTube's views

"YouTube executive Robert Kyncl said at a conference that views from mobile devices now account for a quarter of views on the Google-owned video site.
"We’re experiencing a massive consumer shift," Kyncl said at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit. "Mobile has increased from 6% to 25% in last 18 months across the whole of YouTube."
That figure is up dramatically from the latest official statistics YouTube provides. The company has previously announced that mobile traffic tripled in 2011 and stood at 20 percent of total views."

Source:  Business Insider, 10th October 2012

US digital ad spend hit $17 billion in H1 2012

"In the first half of 2012, internet advertising revenues climbed to an all-time high of $17 billion, representing a 14 percent increase year-over-year, according to IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and prepared by PwC US. This performance is compared to the landmark $14.9 billion reported for the first six months of 2011.
Also marking a 14 percent year-over-year increase, second quarter internet ad revenues for this year hit $8.7 billion, up from $7.7 billion during the same time period in 2011.
Highlights of the report include:
Mobile generated significant growth – almost doubling year-over-year – up 95 percent to $1.2 billion in half-year 2012 from $636 million in the comparable 2011 period
Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, saw an increase of 18 percent year-over-year, bringing in a little over $1 billion in revenue in the first two quarters of 2012 compared to nearly $900 million in the first six months of 2011
Search revenues in the first half of the year totaled $8.1 billion, up 19 percent from nearly $6.8 billion during the same timeframe in 2011
Display-related advertising revenues in the first half of the year totaled almost $5.6 billion, accounting for 33 percent of 2012 half-year revenues, up 4 percent from $5.3 billion in the first half of 2011
Retail advertisers constitute the largest category of internet ad spending for the first half of this year, claiming 20 percent of the total revenues at $3.4 billion, while Automotive brought in $2.2 billion for first-half 2012, marking an uptick to 13 percent versus 11 percent of category spend reported for half-year 2011 at $1.7 billion"
Source:  Press release from the IAB, 11th October 2012

Amazon makes no profit from the sales of Kindle Fire tablets

"Amazon has confirmed it will not make a profit from sales of its latest Kindle tablet and e-reader devices.
"We sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break-even on the hardware," chief executive Jeff Bezos told the BBC.
It is a stark contrast to the strategy of best-selling tablet-maker Apple.
Mr Bezos made the comments as his firm launched its new Paperwhite e-reader and an associated book lending scheme in the UK, Germany and France."

Source:  BBC News, 11th October 2012

Top countries for Twitter users

Caution - see note 1 below
The top 10 counties by percent of total Twitter users.  I.e. 50% of Twitter users are in the US.

COUNTRY    % OF USERS
United States    50.99
United Kingdom    17.09
Australia            4.09
Brazil            3.44
Canada            2.92
India                    2.87
France            1.76
Indonesia            1.43
Iran                    0.88
Ireland            0.85
Source:  Beevolve, October 2012
Note 1 - These are unofficial stats.  If you take Twitter's official statment that there are approx 140m active accounts, then there are approximately 70m Twitter users in the US, and over 20m in the UK.  Hmmm - UK figure looks too high (Population is 60m)
Note 2 - Lots of other stats in the full article

People who download music from Peer-to-Peer sites buy 30% more music than people who do not

"US P2P users have larger collections than non-P2P users (roughly 37% more).  And predictably, most of the difference comes from higher levels of ‘downloading for free’ and ‘copying from friends/family.’
But some of it also comes from significantly higher legal purchases of digital music than  their non-P2P using peers–around 30% higher among US P2P users.  Our data is quite clear on this point and lines up with numerous other studies:  The biggest music pirates are also the biggest spenders on recorded music.
Our German results appear to confirm this finding–in fact, extravagantly so.  German P2P users buy nearly 3 times as much digital music as their non-P2P using peers.  We qualify this because the German results are based on too small a sample to be statistically reliable: only 4% of respondents (39 people) reported using P2P networks.  Yet the results are consistent with our wider findings.  German P2P use is mostly the province of digital music aficionados who download in large quantities and who also buy in much larger quantities than their non-P2P peers."

Source:  American Assembly, 15th October 2012

Note - lots of other interesting stats in the report, inc the fact that the median person aged 30-49 has only 30 albums worth of digital music 

Felix Baumgartner's skydive was seen live on YouTube by 8 million people

"Red Bull Stratos, the event behind Felix Baumgartner's skydive from the edge of space in a record breaking stunt, reached eight million concurrent views on YouTube, marking the highest-ever concurrent viewing figure on the Google-owned site.
Baumgartner, the Austrian daredevil, yesterday (14 October) became the first skydiver to reach the speed of sound, when he jumped out of a balloon 24 miles above New Mexico, reaching a top speed of 833.9 miles per hour.
The stunt was sponsored by Red Bull and attracted eight million concurrent views on YouTube, the highest-ever concurrent viewing figures on the Google-owned site's history.
Red Bull described the stunt as the biggest piece of activity it has undertaken this year. It has been heavily promoting the event through its own sites as well as social media channels and PR activity.
According to a Twitter spokeswoman, there has been approximately 3.1m tweets sent, relating to the event."
Source:  Marketing Magazine, 15th October 2012

More than one billion smartphones are in use around the world

"According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, the number of smartphones in use worldwide surpassed the 1 billion-unit mark for the first time ever in the third quarter of 2012. It has taken 16 years for the smartphone industry to reach this historic milestone.
Scott Bicheno, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "The world's first modern smartphone, the Nokia Communicator, was introduced in 1996. Nokia remained a dominant force in smartphones for over a decade until the arrival of Apple's iconic iPhone in 2007. The iPhone revolutionized smartphone design and it catalyzed industry growth. By the third quarter of 2011, we estimate there were 708 million smartphones in use worldwide. After a further year of soaring demand, the number of smartphones in use worldwide reached 1.038 billion units during the third quarter of 2012."
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, said, "We estimate 1 in 7 of the world's population owned a smartphone in the third quarter of 2012. Smartphone penetration is still relatively low. Most of the world does not yet own a smartphone and there remains huge scope for future growth, particularly in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa. The first billion smartphones in use worldwide took 16 years to reach, but we forecast the next billion to be achieved in less than three years, by 2015.""

Source:  Press release from Strategy Analytics, 17th October 2012

Mobile accounts for 12% of global internet traffic

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from Statcounter, reported in State of the Internet, Business Insider, 1st October 2012
Read the full presentation - it's brilliant!

Barclays' Pingit app has been downloaded 1.2 million times

"The app, which is also available to customers who do not bank at Barclays, allows people to send and receive money via their mobiles using just mobile phone numbers. Users can also send money almost instantly to companies or charities and internationally, for free.
It has attracted 1.2 million downloads since its launch in February. A large amount of these are non-customers, who have then gone on to take up other banking products from the company, Barclays’ customer experience design director Darren Foulds claims."

Source:  Marketing Week, 28th September 2012

More than a million businesses use the Foursquare merchant platform

"Community: Over 25 million people worldwide
Over 2.5 billion check-ins, with millions more every day
Businesses: Over a million using the Merchant Platform (more information at foursquare.com/business)
Employees: Over 100 between headquarters in New York, an office in San Francisco, and a lovely outpost in London."

Source:  Data from Foursquare, 'updated September 2012', retrieved 5th October 2012

The ad-supported internet ecosystem accounts for 3.7% of American GDP

"Employment in the ad-supported internet ecosystem doubled over the past four years to 5.1 million, making it one of the most dynamic sectors in the recessionary American economy, according to a study by researchers at the Harvard University Business School, commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The ecosystem contributed $530 billion to the U.S. economy last year, close to double 2007 figures, and accounted for 3.7 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), an uptick from 2.1 percent four years ago.
These key findings are from the 2012 “Economic Value of the Advertising-Supported Internet Ecosystem,” a comprehensive update to a study by the same name released by IAB in 2009, reviewing data from 2007. John Deighton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, who helped lead the previous version, directed the current study, with Leora D. Kornfeld, Research Associate, Harvard Business School, serving as principal investigator. The research was unveiled today at the annual IAB MIXX Conference in New York City to quantify the significant role the ad-supported digital sector plays in the expansion of the broader U.S. business landscape."
Source:  Press release from the IAB, 1st October 2012