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The tech industry has been hailed as a boon for growth and job creation.

But upon closer inspection of multi-billion dollar valuations and scrappy startups on their way to profitability, you might notice that the revenues these companies command are wildly disproportionate to the number of people they employ.

Facebook, which some have valued at $100 billion after filing for an IPO last week, employs a mere 3,000 people. Compare that with General Motors, which raised the biggest IPO in history in 2010. Its estimated market cap at the time of this writing is only $41.4 billion, and they employ a whopping 202,000 workers to create that value.
This should come as no surprise. It takes a lot more people to build a car than to build an app.
We thought it might be interesting to parse all these billions in relation to the actual people who work for these companies. How much money and value is being pulled in per employee? And which tech companies are getting the biggest bang for their payroll buck?
Our friends at research and analysis firm Statista have put together these handy charts to show which companies are maximizing employee return.

So here are some of the most interesting trends and graphs we came across in the later part of 2011 (therefore showing trends of 2011). They are from a variety of sources and we have tried to include the relevant credit at the bottom of each.

We will be adding a couple more as this is a useful repository of mobile stats and trends in the industry (and globally).

Enterprise Mobile Apps - 2011 Stats

Some-interesting-Smartphone-Stats-2011

Smartphone - Penetration - various countries

Number of apps installed per user (avearge) various countries

Operating systems in China - Mobile - 2011

India - type of Smartphone Usage

India - Smartphone Apps per user

UK - Smartphone OS - 2011

 

Smartphones in India - 2011

 

HTML5 capabilities of UK Devices - 2011

FeaturePhones are still in majority - 2011

Most of the sessions so far are talking about how the Asian scene (Emerging market driven) requires different business models for Apps Stores and even Device makers.

Talking about huge opportunity as mobile screens being the main screen for content consumption. Tablets are got to become a major screen that replaces the laptop (CEO, Vidiator). Turner APAC talking about Content Everywhere that also syncs with this concept.

Airtel India presented about India market where you can’t ignore the feature phones.

Sessions from Rovio coming up later. Also more about FabriQate presentation shortly.

(updates to follow through the day). Some images below:

We have been involved with the Enterprise Mobile Apps scene from its early days, and its amazing to see the growth in this space as more and more companies embrace mobile technology to empower and mobilise its systems (and people).

Either as a cost-saving or as a sales-acceleration, the enterprise mobile apps story is getting interesting. Just look at some of these news blurbs below that we have been tracking:

Apple CEO Tim Cook announces 92% of Fortune 500 are trying out the iPad.

Adoption by sector:
Financial service firms are the most likely to adopt the iPad – 36.8% of its customers iPad deployments are in financial services companies. Technology clocks in at 11.4%, and the healthcare industry lands at 10.5%.

Here’s a useful chart from Good Technology explaining iPad usage by industry:

Other interesting trends around devices (its mostly iPads!):

While iPad has been the clear leader in the Enterprise Mobile Apps game so far (estimates suggest over 96% market share), there are a couple issues that make other Android (or WP8) powered tablets also interesting. Most important issues with the iPad:

1. Cost — its still an expensive device compared to base level Android tablets like Amazon Fire or the Nook

2. Limited customisation — Apple has strict rules about what can and cannot be done on the iPad, so Enterprises sometimes cannot overwrite or rebrand core features. In that sense Android again has an advantage

3. Still a personal device — Many argue that the iPad is still a consumer focussed device with entertainment and fun apps. While these can be turned off (Configuration Profile), the other tablets (especially WP8) are going to be more “corporate” in their approach. This almost is going back to the Mac vs. Windows argument for enterprise where as we know Microsoft is the clear winner.

In summary, dont write off Android tablets or WP8 tablets when they launch. No one knows the Enterprise game better than Microsoft and their recent WP8 offering is very good and many would argue, its ideal for enterprise.

Please feel free to share your thoughts or pop us a visit if your company is considering enterprise mobile apps and need a sounding board. FabriQate is a dedicated mobile technology company and we have deep expertise in enterprise mobile apps for several Fortune 500 clients including handling the essential security issues.

Finally, the infographic that says it all:

The one that amazes us is that 66% of the people check their favourite app atleast once a day… wonder how many people have Facebook as their favourite app!

Just been informed that Nokia Retail stores in Asia have chosen the FabriQate Ideas app as a demo on the devices. See picture:

FabriQate Ideas app as demo in Nokia Retail in Asia

Yesterday was a special day: it saw the formalization of a dynamic new partnership with the world’s largest self-service app platform, Mobile Roadie, and the much anticipated China launch of our joint product, Q Mobao, all at a sparkling press conference at the Hilton Hotel in Guangzhou.

Among the audience of 50+ was a contingent of friends and existing clients, new and soon-t0-be partners and distributors, and the full gamut of local and national press/media.  They were treated to two rousing speeches by the partnership’s CEOs, a live demonstration of the Madonna “麦当娜” app by FabriQate’s Q Mobao lead Daniel Dong, a networking and group-interview session, and a live Q&A session, conducted by FabriQate’s BD Manager Roban Chen, to conclude.  By the time the conference was underway, the news had already reached TechCrunch, and today the Washington Post, Sohu, and many more.

Manav Gupta, FabriQate China Managing Director, announced FabriQate as Mobile Roadie’s strategic and exclusive partner, as well as its business expansion in China and around the globe.

Michael Schneider, CEO of Mobile Roadie, elaborated on its global presence as well, its broader impact to Chinese consumers, and its future plans in China.

Q Mobao, the localized version of Mobile Roadie’s successful DIY solution, allows iPhone and Android apps to be created in hours instead of months and at a fraction of the cost of custom development, with features such as music,video, and social-sharing to popular Chinese SNS, as well as data management to monitor user behavior.  Pricing can be found on the Q Mobao website.

Through a local partner, apps made on the Q Mobao platform will be accessible to China Unicom and China Mobile’s combined 900 million mobile users.

“With a web-based platform, Q Mobao aims to bring businesses and individuals custom-made iOS and Android apps that can promote their brands more effectively,” stated Gupta.  “We have a strong local R&D and Operations team that deeply understands China market’s needs. Moreover, with our global network, we are best positioned to further ease any and all strategy and creative ideation, set-up, development, and post-launch processes.”

Mobile Roadie has already amassed more than 10 million end users worldwide.  With the release of Q Mobao, FabriQate’s goal is to add a couple more zeros to that number in China as the decade progresses.

Stay tuned for additional updates and photos from the event!

So the team at FabriQate thought it’s best to discuss the real potential of Mobile Payments. Is it truly going to lead to the rise of the “Superphone” or does it just become another 10-year story that goes nowhere?

As teenagers, the founders of FabriQate saw the endless potential of mobile phones while growing up in Japan. They both knew that mobile technology would soon be our end-all be-all gadget. And Japan has made leaps and bounds here with the popular M-Mode. However barring the exception of M-Pesa (Kenya) and M-Chek (India) there aren’t that many success stories around.

The media and marketing industry has spent the last couple of years in anticipation of the full-scale launch of mobile payments. This year seemed to get us closer, with news of Orange and Barclaycard’s UK JV to deliver mobile payments, Google wallet’s launch in the US and O2’s impending wallet system. Another UK company called Monetise (whose Chairman, we recently met) also has been making some progress here.

Despite this progress, mobile payment is still limited in the UK due to the spend limits imposed (£15 on Orange and talks of £30 on O2), as well as lack of scale and too many different stakeholders and services in the market. All this was slowing progress but more importantly, it was inevitable that all these products were going to confuse consumers.

So FabriQate asks the question, what do consumers really want?

- Convenience
- Effortless (and natural)
- Consumers want to be able to replace their physical wallet with a secure mobile wallet (possibly using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology to pay for goods and services)
- Benefit from relevant offers and coupons, delivered direct to their phone

The latest YouGov mobile wallet survey backs this up, with the majority of surveyed consumers saying they would only use their phone for smaller ticket purchases. Also the operators recognised the need to invest in mobile payments infrastructure and had to face up to the threat of being overtaken by companies like Facebook, Square and Google in the mobile payments space if they didn’t react and work in a collaborative way.

In all – we think the wave is now. After 10 years + of deliberation, the mobile payments wave is finally arriving .. however the solution still needs to be refined or this wave will dissipate on the wave breakers!

The last few weeks have been packed with releases, acquisitions and rumours in the mobile industry (as usual), so we decided to post an end-of-August update post to keep you updated:

Windows Phone 7 Mango Update has been announced to be with us in September 1st week, so only a few days to wait. The Mango update is big news for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 developers as it introduces over 500 new or improved features. Perhaps one of the most interesting updates is mobile IE 9 which is included with Mango, this will provide better HTML5 support. The update also adds Twitter and LinkedIn integrated services.  Nokia is rumoured to release its flagship Windows Phone device in October at the Nokia World Conference. We expect Windows Phone 7 to have a strong response.

Nvidia hopes that cheap mobile chip sales will boom, the chips maker well known for graphics chips is forecasting continued revenue growth thanks to their Tegra smartphone processor. The company has developed revenues to $1.02bn and improved on a loss in Q2 2010 of $175m to a profit in Q2 2011 of $174m. The Tegra powers both the Samsung Galaxy and the Motorola Droid X2. Nvidia are not sitting ideal as they already have a quad core mobiel processor on the way currently code named Kal-El.

Blackberry Colt leaked, revealing RIM’s holy grail their QNX operating system. Recent news and statistics have shown that RIM has been losing market share to iPhone and Android over the last 24 months. The company has put a lot behind their new QNX OS. However, a heap of RIM’s USPs such as BES are rumoured to not be ready for launch of the Colt! The answer suggested all over the web is that it has taken RIM much longer to re-write their BES services on QNX than RIM expected. However, what does sound very good is rumours that the Colt and other QXN devices will soon support Android based applications!

USA Adults Like QR Codes according to ComScore’s report 14m US adults used a QR code in June. Magazines and Newspapers represented nearly 50% of all the QR scanning which is interesting when we read various reports telling us “Newspapers are dead”.. not yet.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS leaked, so we can all take a look at the new Android smartphone OS screens and compare them to current Android screens and to iOS5? As well as an improved look there is apparently panorama mode fo the camera, and an app launcher. Also strong talk about Chrome being the browser on Android now.
And the two other pieces of information that just about everyone knows now:
Google buys Motorola, for $12.5bn – The purchase includes over 17,000 patents as well the manufacturing capabilities to output nearly 7m devices a quarter.

Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple – The share price took a bit of a dip (erasing $25 billion from the market value) and the fans showed their love, but Steve Jobs is no longer CEO of Apple for the second time round.

View the full infographic here or read the full article here

Guohe Ad, China’s largest mobile ad mediation platform, has recently released an infographic on mobile advertising in China.

The most interesting tidbit from the infographic was a comparison of ad impressions between the iOS and Android platforms.  iOS ad impressions accounted for 58% of the mobile market compared to 42% for Android.  Guohe Ad explains the iOS advantage came from having a larger mobile app store which has higher quality apps with the ability to  attract more user interaction.

According to PaidContent, a firm specializing in paid content business models, the market for in-app advertising in China is comparatively small but growing quickly. By the end of 2011, in-app advertising revenue in China should reach almost 50 million dollars, which amounts to approximately 350% growth in only one year.

In stark contrast to the revenues made from in-app advertising via mobile, Chinese mobile ad spending will double in 2011 to nearly $500 million, according to eMarketer, fueled by the trend towards mobile internet in China this year.  According to Bloomberg, ad spending in China will double to $1.16 billion in 2014, matching the U.S.’s current total.

370 million Chinese, half the number of mobile handset owners in China, are expected to access the mobile internet at least once a month by the end of 2011.  Mobile ad spending has followed suit in the areas of mobile search, display and text message ads.

The challenge for mobile app developers is to attract a larger chunk of the advertising spending on mobile web into their mobile apps.  As Chinese are notorious for not paying for mobile software, app developers have already chased freemium business models to procure revenue.  Additional revenue from in-app advertising is a win-win for all parties involved.  Hopefully, advertising experts and mobile specialists working on the Android platform can find a way to catch up and even surpass the iPhone on ad impressions.

In the meantime, all other platforms will try to chip away at the iPad’s control of a ridiculous 98% of ad impressions versus all other tablets on the market.

Technode asserts that as of 2011, there are over 30 mobile ads platforms operating in China. Phone manufacturers or Telecom (Apple, Google, China Telecom), traditional web ads platform (iMocha, AdChina etc), new mobile ads platform (MadHouse, CASEE, Wooboo, AdWo, Domob etc) and ads mediation platforms (Guohead, AdMob etc).