Zenith and other indexes studied the worldwide expansion smartphones devices had last year.
2018 was be a big year for smartphone ownership.
There are currently as many as 2,500 million smartphone users in the world, according to Statista, and China and the U.S. make up for most of them.
According to Zenith´s Mobile Advertising Forecast report, during last year, 66% of individuals in 52 key countries owned a smartphone, up from 63% in 2017 and 58% in 2016.
The Netherlands (94%), Taiwan (93%), Hong Kong (92%), Norway and Ireland (each at 91%) were to become the top 5 markets regarding smartphone penetration above 90%.
Western Europe and Asia Pacific showed penetration levels of 80% and 90% respectively, with the exception of Israel, where penetration was at 86%.
Regarding smartphone ownership, China (1.3 billion users), India (530 million users) and the U.S. (229 million users) accounted for the highest number of smartphone users.
The US-China competition
Although countries like India, Brazil and Russia continue building their salesforce regarding smartphone ownership, China and the U.S. have a monstrous market for smartphones and even artificial intelligence.
Data from a Pew Research Center survey showed that the cell phone ownership market is at near saturation as 99% t of users aged 19 to 49 own a device, while 97% of the college graduate category own one.
Half of China’s population, on the other hand, is projected to use a smartphone by 2020.
In little more than a decade, China has come from almost nowhere to become the largest e-commerce market in the world, accounting for more than 40% of global e-commerce transactions.
China’s mobile payments are 11 times the value of those in the United States thanks to consumers’ early embrace of the technology, especially smartphones.
…and the uncomfortable rival
Across the entire world, smartphone users are expected to grow by one billion in a time span of five years, which means there will be 2.7 billion smartphone users by 2019.
And one of the largest growing markets is India as tech firms struggle with China’s strict regulations.
Across India, smartphone penetration is continuously growing. It sits just below 50% as its user base is estimated to reach 466 million (34% of the population) by 2020, up from the 308 million (24% of the population) in 2018, according to eMarketer.
The opportunity is so big, that Netflix wants in. CEO Reed Hastings claimed that the next 100 million subscribers of Netflix will come from India in an attempt to emulate the big success of Facebook, which has more users there than in any other country, and Whatsapp, the most used app in India.
Apple or Android
As for the worldwide market share by operating systems, all platforms are completely irrelevant when facing iOS and Android.
A BetterWorld Telecom index and Statista graph revealed that by the end of 2017, Android enjoyed an 85.9% of worldwide market share by operating system.
iOS possessed a meek 14.0%, still a long way from the aforementioned competition, but also far away from other rivals like Windows Phone and Blackberry.
Ads, the revolution
Internet ads have been the best way to account for revenue online.
Zenith predicted that for 2018, 53% of all internet adspend will go to ads viewed on mobile devices in 2017, and that proportion is set to rise to 59% in 2018 and 62% in 2019.
According to an eMarketer forecast, total digital ad spending in the US will grow 19% to $129.34 billion during 2019—54.2% of estimated total US ad spending.
It is also predicted that for the first time, the combined share of the duopoly (Google and Facebook) will drop, even as their revenues grow.
As for TV ad spending, it is expected to decline 2.2% to $70.83 billion this year, largely because there are no elections or big events, such as the Olympics or World Cup.
Consult the complete information here.
