Mobile is Eating the World! Research by Abundance

In Abundance, I wrote that 3 Billion new minds are "coming on-line" in the next six years.

We're going from 1.8 Billion (in 2010) to at least 5 Billion on-line by 2020.

Mobile is Eating the world

A few months ago, Benedict Evans of Andreesen-Horowitz released an excellent presentation called "Mobile is eating the world."

I've taken the liberty to reproduce a few of his charts (below) to discuss what they mean.

These days, as Evans says, "Everyone gets a pocket super computer".

There are two important things about this statement…

First, today's smartphones truly are "super computers"

During the iPhone-6 launch weekend, Apple sold 25-times more CPU transistors (in one weekend) than were in all the PCs on Earth in 1995.

As I wrote in Abundance, the smartphone you have in your hand or in your pocket gives you access to more information than President Clinton had access to while he was in office.

In 1992, you could expect to pay $222 for a computer with 1 million transistors. Today, 1 million transistors cost a measly 6 cents.

Figure Above Shows Computing Cost-Performance (1992 – 2012)

Second, everyone is getting Connected

The unconnected world is shrinking.

The graph below shows how the percent of unconnected adults globally has been decreasing rapidly (from 100% to 27%) and will continue to do so as the cost of smart phones plummets.

Figure Above Shows how the unconnected are shrinking (1995 – 2017)

In the next five years, 80% of the adults on Earth will have a smart phone.

Figure above shows 80% of the world will have smartphones by 2020

Smartphones (which are cheaper and more powerful than ever) enable more and more people to connect to the Internet.

And by "more and more," I mean billions of people in the next five years.

The Rising Billion

In Abundance, I call the billions who are getting access to mobile and smart phones "The Rising Billion."

As 3 to 5 billion new minds (this next decade) connect to the Internet, how will this change the world?

What will these billions of people purchase? What will they desire?

What will they invent? What challenges will they solve?

Very significantly, these billions now have access to infinite computing (on the cloud), the world's information (on Google), cloud printing (thru 3D printing), artificial intelligence and even synthetic biology. With access to this technology these new connected-segment of humanity also represent the greatest era of innovation ever.

These rising billions also represent tens-of-trillions of dollars entering the global economy. If they are not your customers, they are your customer's customers. How will your business capitalize on this opportunity?

If you want to discuss the implications of the data presented above, I run an Executive mastermind group called Abundance 360 in January. There are just a few spots left, apply here.

by Peter Diamandis