Why It's Finally the Year of Mobile

One need only look at the explosive coverage of wave upon wave of feature- and smart-phone related news and product announcements to reach the conclusion that the year of mobile has finally arrived. But it's once recent editorial comment I've read in The Hindu, India's National Newspaper, that sealed it for me:

There is a plethora of smartphones from international companies like LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson flooding the Indian market. In addition, local companies like Videocon, Fly, Zen and many others are entering the growing segment. The resulting competition could bring down smartphone prices.

Pretty obvious closing statement no? We all know that competition validates a market.  But what I think what we're seeing that the growing smartphone market, and the rise of the affordable smartphone will hasten the rise of mobile computing globally. The US is leading in mind share, sure, with efforts from Apple and Google gaining the majority of attention. But you now have a global market of devices across the cost spectrum that at their core go well beyond communications to actually enabling the equivalent of a desktop computing experience to anyone, anywhere, within the range of cellular tower. Coupled with the rise of app marketplaces, the burgeoning micro economies Apple and Google are nurturing, and moves by players like Facebook to attempt to drive online usage of their platforms by subsidizing not handset or service but actual airtime for access, you have what can be called a truly global mobile marketplace evolving faster than previous technologies, with sales rates of mobile devices and platforms, including iPads, growing faster than anyone could imagine.

So, in my opinion, and in closing, the Year of Mobile isn't the point at which mobile computing reaches near global ubiquity - it's the year when we finally realized that it wasn't just possible for that to happen, but when it became clear that it was inevitable, on a global basis. In my opinion,  that clearly makes this that year. 

We're surely in for as much change as we are growth, but I know that from our perspective, as digital marketers and technologist, we will all certainly enjoy what should be a meteoric rise.