Walk into almost any sizable meeting of Information Technology professionals and you'll be entering an iPhone nirvana (or hell, depending on your persuasion).

At least half the room will have iPhones, probably all set to the same ringtone ("old phone"). These days several of them will also be feverishly tapping about on an iPad.

And if they're brainstorming ideas for a new product or service they'll inevitably say "You know, what we need is an iPhone App!".

Most of the room will passionately agree and at least one person will say "Don’t forget about Android!".

Then, someone (probably me) will say, "Hang on, who's this product for? What smartphones are customers actually using? In fact, are most of them even using smartphones at all?"

This is a seriously uncool thing to say in a room full of iPhone geeks.

Then they'll pull out the hard facts...

"Of all the smartphone traffic to our website, 80% are using iPhones!" or "Everyone's buying smartphones these days!"

I can't argue with that. In their view of the world it's absolutely true.

One Percent

The IT (Information Technology) industry is full of very smart people. But I think many people who work in this industry tend to forget that they are highly unusual - in fact - they might even be regarded as 'freaks' when held up against the general population.

Here's a reminder...

• There's 39,580 people employed in the IT & Communications industry as at February 2010 (Statistics NZ). That's less than 1% of the New Zealand population.
  
• The typical IT pro in NZ earns way above the average wage.
• Most of them live near and work in the CBDs of our biggest cities.
• They are surrounded by some of the wealthiest people in New Zealand - the people you see pounding the main streets of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch can probably afford smartphones and their expensive data plans.
• IT professionals are early adopters of technology - we have to - it's our job.
  

In their world they are surrounded by people with iPhones (and increasingly, Android Phones).

But try stepping outside the CBDs and into the suburbs, malls, little cities and small towns of New Zealand. It's a different story.

Outside the CBD I don't see many people with smartphones.

Fact is, very few people know the truth about iPhone and smartphone sales in New Zealand. It's mostly guesswork and hotly contested.

iPhone Guesswork

Some facts...

• According to a Statistics NZ report in 2009, 85% of individuals aged over 15 used a mobile phone in the past 12 months (2.85 million people). They didn't differentiate between types of phones.
• Whereas, according to the CIA Factbook there was 4.7 million mobile phone users in NZ in 2009.
• Trademe has reportedly had around 40,000+ downloads of their iPhone app (Strange, there's also around 40,000 people in the IT industry!)
• There's around 2.7 million people who are active members of Trademe.

So this means that 1.5% of Trademe customers definitely have iPhones. I am going to assume that not all Trademe customers with iPhones have downloaded the app (well, I haven't), so that figure might be closer to 3%. I have no hard evidence on that, a wild guess.

Let's assume that this scenario is the same for the general population...

• Since it's now 2011 I reviewed the 2009 general population mobile phone use estimates from Statistics NZ and the CIA Factbook, and increased this figure based on reports of 18.5% growth in the 2009-2010 period.
• This gives us a possible range of 3.4 million to 5.6 million mobile phones in NZ (some people own more than one phone).
• So 3% of the above range equates to an estimated 102,000 to 168,000 iPhones in New Zealand (135,000 taking the average).
• A forum discussion on Geekzone said that there was 100,000 iPhones sold in NZ prior to the launch of the iPhone 4 in August last year - so this range feels about right.

iPhone alley in the Wellington CBD

My conclusions:

• At the start of 2011 there's around 135,000 [UPDATE: The actual figure is over 300,000!] iPhones in New Zealand.
• Almost all iPhone users live our biggest cities.
• Most iPhone users are working professionals and earn well above the average wage.
• Those iPhone users who earn below or closer to the average wage are probably young adults and early adopters of technology.

If anyone has the hard facts or their own observations, please contribute via the comments.

So What?

Whatever the number, what still matters and often forgotten, is your audience. This is where the conversation should start.

Too often the focus is solely on the technology, not the people (your customers) and where technology fits in to their lives.

Smartphones are wonderful, powerful and allow creative solutions - but this is all useless if your target audience is Barry from Eketahuna who carries a Nokia 1100 prepay hand-me-down from Sally.

So, the next time you're in a meeting room full of relatively wealthy technology-centric people stroking their smartphone or the latest tablet, remind yourself...

"This is not normal. They are freaks!"

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DISCLAIMER

I'm an IT freak too. I live in the way outer suburbs. My family has a 1st Gen iPhone, Vodafone 845 Android and Sony Ericsson t100.

PHOTO CREDITS

iPhone Dog

Coastlands Mall by Finsec

Willis Street by PhillipC