Initially, this post mentioned just the research and rankings by Tomi Ahonen; a later publication granted similar context with similar and different conclusions which combined with Ahonen’s insights grants considerable understanding towards current and future contexts of mobile on country levels. Therefore both of these are presented in a single post for relevance and compaative analysis.

Tomi Ahonen’s Ranking of Most Advanced Mobile Markets (by Country)
Tomi Ahonen (by virtue of his consultancy) tends to have all kinds of information which offer some measure of contextual relevance towards understanding mobile perspectices and trends. One of those that tends to cause all kinds of neat conversation has to do with his ranking of countries towards how advanced they are. He’s done this tanking for a few years (within his publications) and now offers this ranking again. Its not the most perfect (see the methodology quoted after the numbers, but should offer clear enough reasoning why approaching mobile from a “let’s evangelize the whole world at once approach” isn’t the best strategy.

Here’s his ranking (reformatted in a cleaner table layout):

…This index is as far as I know, the only international comparative table that uses all the major metrics for the industry as inputs – ie I use the mobile phone penetration rate per capita, the migration rate to 3G networks, the adoption ie usage of mobile data (which typically is the adoption rate of SMS text messaging in most markets) and the measure of how advanced the handsets are in that country (which in most cases is the adoption rate of smartphones)…

*Emphasis ours

Read the rest of Tomi’s 2011 Mobile Phone Index Ranking posting.

Flurry’s Analysis of the Installed Base of Users for iOS and Android Devices
One of the most popular (and heard) metrics for ascertaining the relevance of mobile is to take a look at sales and activations numbers. And certainly these do have some redeeming value when looking at the “right now” action that is happening with mobile. However, concentrating on sales and activations misses the most signifiant statistic – how many devices are being used right now? And if there is only a percentage of those total sales or activations being used, what others kinds of information does this installed base give us that might better allow us to see the actual use of mobile, and the opportunities which might lie for mobile/mobile ministry endeavors?

The largest take on installed base research that I’ve seen to date seems to be this work compiled and recently published by Flurry.

Flurry validates their research by using several data points, most of which are available publically, and then cross-linking that against their metrics gained from the 140,000 applications which utilize their analytics software/services. Here’s a snippet of their report:

…Because this chart measures future potential, TAMs are much larger relative to active user bases.  The result, visually, is a lot more “light blue.”  Many of the world’s largest countries have largely un-penetrated markets, primarily due to standards of living (emerging markets) or increased competition for consumers’ disposable income (developed markets).  In either case, the TAM is there, but the adoption hasn’t yet occurred.  So, many of these markets are future bets with the time of maturity somewhat variable and unknown.  In this chart, the U.S. has both the largest current installed base and market upside.  Again, this is because of its unique, well-penetrated and large, affluent population.  Next China, given its very large population (1.3 billion), along with a growing middle class who has already begun adopting smart devices, has the world’s second largest market potential.  In comparison, even though India has the world’s second largest population (1.2 billion), its TAM is much smaller than China’s because of India’s very low standard of living.  The result is that, even though its total population is not far behind China’s, its total addressable market is.  Further, the adoption of smartphones and tablets among its TAM has been small.  Finally, Japan, the world’s fourth largest market, has a lot of upside given light penetration of iOS and Anroid devices against its large, addressable market..

Read the entire iOS/Android Installed Base report from Flurry

Takeaways/Conclusions
We titled this post Two Looks at the Context/Term ‘Advanced Mobile’ because the phrase finds itself often within conversations about mobile/mobile ministry. Being advanced is indeed one part functionality (Ahonen) and another part current/analyized use (Flurry). Aiming devices, services, and experiences to a mobile goal means that you have to keep in mind not just the trends (Ahonen) but also what’s happening that’s addressable. Aiming for smartphone users in the US makes sense because of the shape and prospects of the market. Using the same approach in Angola might not be a good bet. The context of what’s advanced mobility there or elsewhere has to seen in light of what’s actually happening.

Given the information above, shaping your mobile strategy for 2012 and beyond should be a good bit clearer.