It’s about time. Recent research from PEW Internet & America Life Project is beginning to tell a compelling story for American mobile web adoption. For the past two or more years, I have been somewhat astounded at the continual higher mobile adoption rates found in other countries. However strange as it seemed, there was an interesting and unique story in each case to justify these statistics.
Japan
As of Q1 2007, half of Japanese mobile consumers use the mobile Internet, which contrasts 10% of Europeans and a significantly lower amount of Americans. Why? Japanese consumers tended to use mobile web to get information that was timely, location driven, and actionable for their life on the go. Japanese never had a highly adoptable SMS program, and so mobile web quickly took over the void. Things like ringtones and wallpapers were pushed using this method instead of SMS which was more popular in the US and Europe. Add that to lengthy train commutes into work, and you have fast mobile web adoption.

China, India, and developing countries
Out of the 2.5 billion mobile users worldwide, 59% of them live in developing countries. The biggest growth in the past year coming from China and India. Mobile phones are cheap and portable, thus an easier method to spread internet adoption to rural areas. Then, add in highly popular “pay-as-you-go” contracts, cheap subscription rates for agriculture tips, and a growing number of location based services. What you get is mobile phones growing to become the primary device to access the internet for many people.
Europe
For over a year now, the US has been trailing the majority of European nations in mobile internet use. Europe has a very different and more developed “mobile phone culture”. While many American’s couldn’t move past the cellphone as a “tool”, and mobile internet as a shrunken and moving PC, Europeans found a thing to love. They latched onto the passion, the fashion, and the future dreams a little earlier. When Americans were IMing, Europeans were SMSing.
Finally now… America (better late than never)
Wireless devices are on the rise. The business use of wi-fi hotspots has nearly doubled in the past year, with the length of sessions in cafes, train stations, bookstores, etc. increasing from 26-35%. While the mobile office users are certainly a huge portion of the market, especially the 3G Mobile Broadband market, there is another highly interesting and active group known as “Mobile Centrics”. While in the late 90s, the desktop online access was led by an upper income mostly male bracket, the mobile revolution might come from a very different source. With the phone being affordable and easy to use, there has been a large growth in some previously more “internet resistant” groups, such as Hispanics. And while the youngest audience (18-29) are still the most mobile active, it is interesting to note a higher adoption of mobile phones vs internet in the over 65 crowd.
Mobile is finding a way to penetrate in areas otherwise left untouched by traditional landline means. Developing countries, minorities, seniors, texting teens, and the traveling worker are all strong forces in the revolution. The big question is whether or not the mobile world is ready for this influx of use. Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb notes a particular area that is still of some concern:

“A lot of users are still using cell phones and for some it’s if not the only way, then the most common way, for them to use the internet. For these users, I hope to see cloud computing initiatives that given them access to the tools and resources PC users already have such as mobile/web office suites, online RSS readers, and social networking access. Although there are some applications that provide these types of things to cell phone users today, none are truly stellar. There is still a large, untapped market of potential cloud computing customers who might stop texting and playing games for a minute if given the tools to do more.”

Marta Strickland
Sources:
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,41753,00.html
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2008/02/asia-some-mobil.html
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1004233
http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/2006/09/european-vs-american-mobile-phone-use.html
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Mobile.Data.Access.pdf
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Users.and.Cloud.pdf
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mobile_web_use_growing_faster_than_ever.php
Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/obd/275294185/in/set-72157594338177655/