This morning I look to MocoNews again for an insightful piece from Tricia Duryee.  Ms. Duryee interviews Steve Boom, Yahoo’s SVP of Broadband and Mobile, after reporting on Steve Jobs‘ comment that 71 percent of mobile browsing in the United States is conducted on Safari.

Mr. Boom says that “by the end of the year, Apple guesses it will have about 10 million handsets in the market. Compare that to Yahoo, which can potentially reach 600 million subscribers today.”

Let me ask a rhetorical question.  Would you rather build a company that reaches 71% of the serviceable market (people with data plans who actually do something other than email) via a single platform and device (and a built-in monetization platform), or would you rather build a company that is going after 29% of the serviceable market but has to deal with dozens of platforms, hundreds of devices, and absent a common monetization platform?

People have been chasing the elusive 600 million number for years now.  That is the wrong target.  What is important is the serviceable market of people with data plans and a propensity to do something other than messaging.