As regular readers of MobHappy will know, I’m no fan of many analysts in the mobile sphere, as I really dislike their modus operandi. Most of them write reports to sell to technology vendors to support their sales propositions to operators and other buyers. Hence, they think they need to hype the market to quite ridiculous lengths, plucking random numbers from thin air and adding lots of 0s to compose so-called “forecasts”.

The amazing thing is that vendors still fall for the scam, paying very large sums of money for data which is utterly meaningless. Do buyers really take these reports into account when making purchasing decisions? Who knows? But if they do, they’re not doing their jobs very well.

But at the other end of the spectrum, we have companies like M:Metrics, who are the Elvis of the analysts, which seems an appropriate comparison since we’re still here in Las Vegas at CTIA.

If you want to know anything about what’s actually happening in mobile today in terms of hard data, you need to be working with these guys –it’s that simple. Do you want to know how many 18 –24 Brits subscribe to sports news services (17.6%) versus their US counterparts (11.1%)? Or if men or women participate more in Reality TV Show sms votes? Actually in the UK, it’s more women (24.3% v 19.3%), while in the US, it’s the other way round (5% v 8.5%).

For a data junkie like me, it’s truly great stuff and based on real facts, rather than some fantasy scenario that I could make up myself.

Disclaimer: Re-reading this before posting it, I just thought I’d better add that I don’t have any financial or commercial interest in promoting M:Metrics whatsoever. But in a world where knowledge is power, if you’re serious about mobile and have the budget, you need to think hard if you can succeed without their data.