Mobile Phone Adoption in Asia: Just the Tip of the Iceberg

It's no secret that Asia's growth in mobile adoption is impressive. Currently 42% of mobile phone subscribers worldwide reside in the Asia Pacific region. Experts believe that this percentage will jump to 50% in the next couple of years.

Recently in the news, there has also been criticism of Asian countries for lagging in Internet adoption. I don't know about you, but to me, this just signals another possible jump in technology. We've all seen how smartphones like the iPhone are catching on. If there are 233 million Indians subscribed to mobile services and only 11 million have access to the Internet, doesn't that create tremendous opportunity for telecommunications companies to bridge the gap? Smartphones and data plans could help fill that Internet access void and further drive the convergence of mobile and data technologies. While that stuff is expensive now, if companies see enough opportunity, they'll find a way to make those services accessible and affordable to users.

Mobile Phone Adoption: A Closer Look
Putting technological convergence aside, let's take a closer look at just how widespread mobile phone adoption is. Here's a rundown of how some of the major Asian countries are faring, according to the "2008 Asian--Mobile Voice Market" report.

India
India ended 2007 with 233 million mobile subscribers. They also have some of the highest usage numbers in the world; the average customer uses 500 minutes per month.

China
With 565 million mobile phone subscribers as of Feb 2008, China is the uncontested largest mobile market in the world. And mobile penetration is only at 41%. China's Mobile chief, Wang Jianzhou, predicts the number of subscribers reaching 800 million before long.

Pakistan
Pakistan hit an amazing 60% growth in mobile phone adoption for 2007, tallying 77 million users by the end of that year. The report attributes this growth to marketing by big operators as well as falling prices for handsets and affordable call rates.

South Korea
South Korea has been a leader in mobile adoption with close to 90% penetration by some accounts, and some projections mark the country reaching 94.7% penetration by 2010. Now, South Korea is incorporating more usage options into the services such as mobile banking and even mobile health care.

Philippines
With a mobile penetration of 59%, growth is marching right along at 15%.

Indonesia
A 30% annual growth rate and 90 million subscribers show that Indonesia is no small player in mobile growth. Predictions target the user base to grow to 120 million in 2008.

Keeping Up With Mobile Growth
The amount of growth in these six markets is staggering. As a company, we've already seen lots of popularity for jaxtr in countries like India. As mobility grows for people in these countries, I suspect that international call volumes may increase too. Fortunately, there's plenty of room on our servers for a few million more customers. =)

With mobile phones popping up everywhere, I think it's only a matter of time before Internet on the phone isn't a luxury, but a standard of living.