Mobile to Surpass Desktop

This past week at Events@Google, analysts at Morgan Stanley presented their Internet Trends deck, which featured predictive trends in the industry.   The report showcased trends related to the mobile industry and detailed emerging trends in e-commerce, location-based services, and social media.

Mary Meeker, head analyst responsible for authoring the presentation, predicted that there will be a convergence of 3G, Video, Social Networking, and VoIP, which will effectively push mobile beyond desktop in the next five years.  Meeker reports that we’ve reached a crucial point in mobile adoption levels globally, and that when comparing the historical uptake levels for Netscape and AOL users with uptake levels for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, the growth rate has been much more steep.

Specifically within mobile, Meeker focused in on e-commerce, which will force innovations for both online and brick-and-mortar companies, identifying location-based services, transparent/comparative pricing, push notifications, and instant mobile delivery as hot-button trends.  Additionally, Meeker highlighted that e-commerce now comprises 4% of total retail sales.  She pointed to Japan’s adoption rate of e-commerce (10% in 2006 to 20% in 2010) as an indicator of how things will progress in the U.S.

The comprehensive report can be found here: http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/internet_trends042010.html