SMS.

That’s the jist of the presentation I gave to a collection of influential communicators last night. I was there at the behest of Matt O’Neill, one of the top chaps at Cordovan Digital. Matt regularly puts on events for his huge network of communications professionals and this month the subject was mobile.

Here are some of the attendees being very polite as I nattered away:

My presentation was introductory. I didn’t go hell-for-leather into the possibilities of HSDPA mobile data or discuss the differences between Android and Symbian. Instead I started-from-the-bottom, looking at the mobile industry broadly — and with a special focus on what the industry is looking like across the world, not just in the UK and other developed countries.

The stat walk-through was rather something. I’ve never actually put everything together in one presentation for a briefing like this — I usually do executive briefings off the top of my head, adjusting them to the company or industry in question as we go — and reacting to the questions accordingly.

But since the audience yesterday evening were from an array of different sized companies (individuals up to FTSE global companies), I kept it very straight.

3.2 billion mobile subscribers on the planet. Roughly.

That’s 3.2 billion folk with a credit account with an operator.

There are 800 million registered cars in the world. 1.4 billion credit cards.

The numbers begin to get really staggering when you sit back and consider them.

China has something like 600 million mobile users. They’re adding between 8 to 10 million new customers a month. That’s half of Orange UK’s roughly 16 million customers.

The reality, of course, is that most folk are using bog standard handsets on 2G networks to communicate. And they’re doing so via phone call and text.

So I walked through some case studies (e.g. the Zambian farmers querying market prices on their handsets) and then I touched a little on the current uses of devices — QIK, Photo Uploading and the like.

As well as talking to a UK audience, I talked — via video conference — to some smarts in Switzerland.

Matt and his colleagues had rigged up a Skype video conference, that, combined with some giant screens and some speakers, worked extremely well. At the end of my presentation I took questions from the Switzerland audience. It was brilliant!

Here’s a rather well made video summary of the evening from the chaps in Switzerland:

(Nice work Thierry).

Thank you once again for the invitation Matt and thank you to the audience for their patience and attention

Here’s the best features:

15.3% demonstrates that above all, UK purchasers want a handset that looks good. It’s a fashion item. A measly amount want email — only 1.2%. That’s to be expected though when you talk to normobs. I’m not surprised that only 1.5% rated the web browsing experience of their handset as the best bit.

As for the worst features?

Almost 15% had an issue with battery life. No surprise. Have you seen my charger, anywhere? 10% don’t like the navigation. Again, no surprise. Most mobile interfaces are simply useless.

I liked this summary of the best and worst bits of handsets:

27% rated their N95 camera as the best bit of the phone. 35% reckoned the battery life sucked. I think the N95 battery is reasonably good myself.

Sony K850i users were effusive about the camera/video on their device. Stands to reason. Excellent quality on that handset.

The biggest problem with the LG Viewty? 25% disliked the navigation/keypad. Oh dear.

Anyway, interesting reading. More info at the above link.