iPhone has two-three year lead in the mobile Internet - Morgan Stanley

Jonny Evans
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December 16, 2009
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Morgan Stanley is singing seriously seasonal songs of praise to Apple Inc., the company the analysis firm says has a “two or three-year lead” in the mobile internet with its iPhone.As reported by Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune, Morgan Stanley’s hour-long conference on the Mobile Internet took place yesterday, and Apple was the hero of that hour.

The analyst firm illustrated its points with graphics detailing the Apple advantage - the iPhone and iPod touch and iTunes ecosystem won praise as “the fastest new tech ramp-up in history”, according to the analysts.

“Apple is in the "pole position" in the race to dominate mobile Internet computing, which is supposed to be for the 2000s what desktop Internet computing was for the 1990s, personal computing for the 1980s, mini computing for the 1970s, and mainframe computing for the 1960s,” the report states, on strength of Morgan Stanley’s thinking.

It’s not just being in possession of a smartphone that matters - actually using the product’s features is essential, and in this Apple holds yet another advantage. While iPhone/iPod touch owners represent just 17 percent of the global smartphone base, they account for 65 percent of the world’s mobile Web browsing, Fortune explains.

“The place where Mark Zuckerberg's 430 million users overlap with Steve Jobs' 57 million is the sweet spot of the mobile Internet. It's here, according to Morgan Stanley, where we find the future of computing,” writes DeWitt.

There’s a host of information tucked away in the Morgan Stanley reports, which Fortune has kindly offered links to - so go and take a look for yourselves (PDF links):

Morgan Stanley Mobile Internet Report (424 pages).
Slide presentation on analyst site
659 slides detailing key themes.

Comments (5)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 16, 2009 - 7:20am

MS gave this very presentation in October with exactly the same data points... this is really nothing new.

Luis Alejandro Masanti (not verified) | December 16, 2009 - 7:38am

quote:

"the iPhone and iPod touch and iTunes ecosystem won praise as “the fastest new tech ramp-up in history”,"

I just mixed up in my brain the lift off of Boeing's 787 yesterday with this comment.

The airplane took a long run and then "jumps in the air."

The iPhone took a long run, thru Mac OS X, iPod/iTunes iterations and now "it jumped off."

This is usual to give the credit to the "visible part."

What what I think companies do not get from Apple is this evolucionary way of increasing value.

Apple builds upon its own success, one brick at the time.

IMO, the success of the iPhone is the success of a vision, not a ocassional one.

(OTOH, Microsoft must do things compatible with the old just to keep customers.)

Luis Alejandro Masanti (not verified) | December 16, 2009 - 7:41am

And, while everybody is trying to catch Apple, Steve has his "Eyes on where the puck will be..."

Luis Alejandro Masanti (not verified) | December 16, 2009 - 7:41am

And, while everybody is trying to catch Apple, Steve has his "Eyes on where the puck will be..."

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 16, 2009 - 9:33pm

The other mobile companies have been imitating Apple's concepts pretty quickly. The App Store didn't exist until mid-2008 and now every major mobile OS has one  (though I consider the App Store to be a bit of a rip off of Installer.app which was first on jailbroken iPhones since 2007).

It's the integration of the hardware and software that the other companies just can't seem to get right. Android has got potential but with all the  devices out there with different screen resolutions, processing power and various hardware features like GPS, compasses and accelerometers that might or might not be in a device, it's impossible for developers to ensure their applications are going to work properly on every device.

Being the first company to ship a smartphone with a desktop-class web browser definitely helps to put them on top in this graphs – I just hope Apple doesn't get complacent. At this point I still think their best competitor is Palm, not MS, Google, Nokia or RIM.