Fast growing mobile countries just catching up

eMarketer released some mobile stats on Brazil, Russia, India and China, which at first blush seem “eye-popping” but taken into context I might say they aren’t. As long as things are kept in perspective, they make sense. For instance, China and India have the two largest populations in the world with more than 1.3 billion and 1.1 billion, respectively.

Now, Noah Elkin makes a statement that initially will make you blink multiple times before you process the information: “there will be more mobile Internet users in China in 2010 than the entire population of the US.”

Look at the numbers, though. The population of the United States is the third largest in the world with 300 million. China has 1 billion more people than the U.S. That’s a staggering difference. It also means that if the users of mobile Internet in China equals the population of the U.S. that is still less than 25 percent of China’s population.

That’s not even all that impressive. This time last year, 21 percent of the U.S. was using mobile Internet according to comScore. And according to a Quantcast Mobile Web Trends report that mobile Web use increased 110 last year, which means the U.S. is actually nearing 43 percent of people use mobile Internet. Personally, the fact that almost half of the country is accessing the Web on-the-go is what I consider an eye-popping number.

Of course, there are other factors to take into account. For instance, in the U.S. 89 percent of the population has a mobile phone. In China, mobile subscribers only accounts for 56 percent. Roughly half of America’s mobile subscribers use the Internet. Although I know the estimated number of mobile web users for China is 957 million in 2014, I don’t have the exact 2010 number, other than the information that it is more than the total U.S. population. Based on the trends, I can hazard a guess around 350 million web users. This means that roughly 40 percent of China’s mobile subscribers use the mobile Web. This number isn’t staggering at all. In fact, it makes sense based on the U.S. stats.

The point here is that, although the BRIC countries seem to be growing very fast, they’re really playing catch-up at this point. It won’t be for another three years that they might outpace the rest of the world. But let’s face it. Eventually mobile Web growth is going to slow down. New mobile subscribers is growing at a slower rate. It doesn’t mean it’s losing popularity. It just means that there aren’t many people left in the market to get. Everyone who wants a cell, has a cell. Soon everyone will have access to mobile Internet until the numbers are no longer suprising because it’s a part of everyone’s everyday life.

Here's an obligatory, corny stock photo showing how many people use cell phones.

http://searchengineland.com/comscore-63-million-on-mobile-internet-35-percent-using-it-daily-16949

Text donations show historic numbers

Most people can text as easily as they breathe these days. It’s almost an afterthought to type out messages in your phone. It’s an instant gratification. You type a message, it gets received and a reply is instantly sent back. That’s why using text messages to make donations is a godsend to charities.

Text donations were available after Hurricane Katrina hit and donations to Haiti easily eclipse those numbers. After just two days, $5 million was donated via text message to Haiti. After two weeks the number had reached $27 million. Why is it that text donations are yielding such large results?

In 2008, charities, understandably, saw a dip in donations. After the disaster, text donations alone reached huge numbers. A cell phone is always with you. In order to donate you don’t have to call a charity and deal with a person or get to a computer and visit a Web site. You can flip open your phone type in a few numbers and letters and you’re done in 30 seconds. This is the sort of instant gratification text donations offer.

The best part is, the bill for that donation comes with your regular bill. Most people probably don’t even feel like the $5 or $10 they donated is making a dent in their wallets because they have to pay the phone bill anyway. This frame of mind is good for the charities and bad for them.

Charities are receiving all sorts of donations in large quantities and yet there is no way for them to contact these people again. We are making anonymous donations and putting it out of our minds. Good for us right this moment; bad for Haiti next week and the charities for the rest of the year.

Text donations, a natural evolution of having technology always at hand, is allowing us to become involved while also distancing ourselves. Is it good? Is it bad? I’m inclined to think that as long as we’re still donating and getting slightly involved it can’t be all bad.

Still want to help? Here are a list of charities, places to text and numbers to call.