Too Much Hype for One Percent?

It’s true, mobile Web consumption (not to be confused with mobile Web site consumption) is up by a 110% in the U.S. and 148% worldwide based on the measurement of pageviews via mobile devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android-based phones, and so on. But here’s the kicker, even with this growth, mobile web consumption only accounts for a mere 1.26% of all Web traffic in the U.S. and a not-so-staggering 0.99% worldwide.

Thrilling, isn’t it? Perhaps this chart showing the mobile share of pageviews by continent from the folks at Quantcast may get your attention:

Mobile Web, 1% of worldwide Web traffic – BFD. Right?

Well, take a moment to consider that in spite of this relatively small piece of the proverbial global Web traffic pie, all the buzz, hype, and a significant amount of marketing dollars seem to be going towards users who create Web traffic via their mobile devices; I bet you’re reading this on your iPhone right now. Every week, brands, ad agencies and entrepreneurs come to us with business plans / proposals / RFPs and are looking to spend invest serious amounts of capital into what they believe is next “killer” app for their industry or vertical.

Guess which platform serves as the foundation for most of these interactions – here, I’ll give you a hint:

Thanks goes out to the mobile metric mavens at AdMob, latest winner of the Google lottery, for the graph above, which breaks down manufacturer share of mobile web traffic by region. Even though there is a lot of blue, it’s important to note that Android is doing a great job at penetrating the market, especially in North America where the Android OS grew throughout the year and ended Q4 2009 with 27% share of mobile web traffic by operating system.

Still scratching your head as to why so many people are spending so much time and money on these devices / device users and their relatively insignificant share of Web traffic? Well, here are my thoughts for your amusement:

• We are in the last hours of B.T. (before tablet) and, if the rumors are true, Apple’s new tablet device will run iPhone OS, which will give a major boost to mobile OS Web consumption as long as it’s not on AT&T
• Time and money are best spent where they will yield the greatest return – well, only if the way in which they are spent / invested is ethical, moral, and provides a real value-add to others – i.e. people with these devices are the “premium” users, spending the most money and thus providing the greatest return

I’m going to stop there given that the tablet is set to launch within the hour, thus rendering any further speculation on my part totally pointless.

Catch you on the flip side…

– RP