Analyst Details iPhone’s Meteoric Rise as Mobile Trailblazer
Filed under: 3G, 3G Network, 3GS, AT&T, App Store, Apps, Bandwidth, Smartphone Market, Wi-Fi, iPod Touch
It was clear when the iPhone was first released in 2007 — and then when the App Store launched last July — that Apple’s smartphone was a game-changer.
At the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday, Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker put some numbers on the iPhone’s astonishing popularity and success.
The chart below shows the growth of data traffic on AT&T’s mobile network. It is 50 times higher than it was three years ago.
The chart (the arrows are courtesy of TechCrunch) gives some credence to AT&T’s claims that its less-than-stellar performance as the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. wireless carrier is due in part to being broadsided by the phone’s remarkable popularity.
The adoption of the iPhone and iPod Touch is outstripping the early adoption of the desktop Internet, as represented by AOL and Netscape in Meeker’s chart below. It also outstrips the early growth of NTT Docomo’s imode, which was the most successful example of the first generation of mobile Web adoption in Japan.
The chart overlays the first 20 quarters of user growth for each product. Only eight quarters after launch, the iPhone and iPod Touch has more than twice as many users (57 million) as imode (25 million), notes TechCrunch, five times as many as Netscape (11 million), and eight times as many as AOL (7 million) at a comparable points in their histories.
The iPhone and iTouch are also the fastest-growing consumer electronics products of all time. Their adoption ramp is even steeper than videogame consoles including the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. The original iPod and Blackberry aren’t even in the same ballpark.
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