Data that shows the scope of change rippling through SE Asia

Here are a couple of slides from a recent Google study called "Swipe Up and to the Right," showing massive numbers for mobile use and e-commerce in parts of Asia.

While not all the same, these countries growing at different rates can give even the casual observer some food for thought about how mobile changes the way people work and live in cities.

The first slide is one of my favorite. It shows that 50% of the Internet economy in SE Asia happens in these cities.

But it also shows that only 15% of the population of these countries lives in cities.

This means another 85% of people without the same average means, costs of livings, or access to technology or software are still outside of the scope of economic growth in the technology-empowered category.



Then you have an eye opening slide from data collected
in Vietnam.

And if you are wondering what a person does on a daily basis with her phone, from waking up to going to bed at night, here's a very detailed picture of that usage. 

It's really clear that mobile is the way most people prefer to interact with the Internet in Asia, for reasons of technological progress, but also for reasons of culture and logistics. 

It will be pretty amazing to think what will happen when the broadband penetration rates fill up remaining gaps in some of the lagging countries, like Myanmar (where the lag is caused by expensive SIM card rates and mobile access, up until recently), to Laos, where most of the population is rural and not reachable through traditional telecoms infrastructure.