Mary Meeker, the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers analyst whose Internet insights are mandatory reading, spoke today at the D10 conference. Her presentation is embedded below. Here are a few key takeaways, however.
Mobile is a huge opportunity. It may seem like mobile has reached market saturation, but that shouldn’t obscure the considerable room for growth for increasingly sophisticated offerings. Meeker noted there are a billion people using 3G mobile wireless connections, but pointed out that’s just 18 percent of all mobile users.
Turning that into businesses won’t be easy, however. Meeker said eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) are five times lower on mobile than on the desktops, and that the situation for businesses who monitor average revenue per subscriber is often just as dire.
So where is KPCB putting its money? Meeker said KPCB didn’t invest in a single private company during the last quarter. That isn’t because opportunities are lacking; instead, the firm determined that prices are simply too high for investing to make business sense.
It was inevitable that Facebook’s IPO would come up in this regard. Meeker described it as “a financial share tsunami” and pointed out that the volume of Facebook shares traded on its first day exceeded the average daily volume of the entire New York Stock Exchange.
Related links:
All Things D – Mary Meeker Explains the Mobile Monetization Challenge
Business Insider – MEEKER: We Have A $1 Billion Growth Fund And We Didn’t Spend A Penny In Q1 Because Valuations Are Crazy
CNet – Meeker: People are flocking to mobile, but where’s the money?
GigaOm – Mary Meeker on the economy, mobile, and Facebook
D10 – conference home page
