The US Closes the Mobile Innovation Gap

The competitive balance is shifting. As the focus of the wireless world moves toward Internet communications, the U.S. strength in software, most notably at Google and Apple, is pushing the U.S. ahead as a laboratory for wireless development. American users are catching up, too. In the past year, the U.S. surpassed Western Europe in the number of subscribers to the high-speed networks known as 3G, according to consultancy comScore M:Metrics. "The industry needs to stop talking about the gap between the U.S. and Europe," says Kanishka Agarwal, vice-president of mobile media at Nielsen. "We have caught up, and we have already passed." The change has been dramatic. While a year ago 6% of Americans who bought phones purchased smartphones, capable of Web access and application downloads, their ranks rose to 16% in early 2008, according to consultancy Nielsen Mobile's survey of 70,000 U.S. wireless subscribers. Over the same time, in Western Europe, the jump in recent smartphone buyers was smaller, from 11% to 17%, according to Nielsen.