Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Asymco’s Horace Dediu analyzes how quickly smartphones will reach “saturation” in the United States — a level he defines as “above 80% for individuals but closer to 100% for households.”
A conservative estimate would be another seven years. An aggressive estimate would be five years. That implies that between 2017 and 2019 smartphones will be the only mobile phones Americans will use. That would be equivalent to a user population of about 300 million.
Smartphones are now in about 50 percent of U.S. households, something accomplished in less time than it took radio, color TV, microwaves, telephones, or the Internet itself.
The value network creation rate is also staggering. The App Industry went from inception to billion dollar valuations in a matter of three years. Entirely new business models and experiences are being created almost daily. What used to be a glacial process of innovation diffusion can now be observed in near real-time.
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