Mobile email set to grab lion's share of APAC mobility market

Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 14 April 2009 14:00

Business IT - Technology

Mobile email use in the Asia pacific region is emerging as the growth market in the enterprise mobility space with a massive annual growth rate of 34% predicted over the next four years.

And, while senior managers and executives in Asia Pacific businesses have primarily driven the mobility market growth, businesses are now turning their focus to empowering middle and lower level employees with enterprise mobility applications.

According to Springboard Research in its latest report - “Staying Connected: The Next Wave in Asia Pacific Enterprise Mobility” – the overall market for enterprise mobility software and applications is estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34% from 2008 to 2012, with mobile email capturing a 61% share of the market by 2012.

Springboard’s senior analyst connectivity, Nupur Singh Andley, says both solution vendors and enterprises are realising the importance of mobilising the bottom segment of business operations in order to improve the cost and time efficiencies and to render the complete process value chain more productive.

However, Andley cautions that “concerns over security and total cost of ownership continue to inhibit aggressive adoption of mobility among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), even as the segment begins to consider mobility as an essential tool for business productivity enhancement.” 

Andley says that industry-specific mobile applications are gaining popularity in the region, including mobile Customer Relationship Management (mCRM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA), and, while mobility is a key enabler for the Logistics and Distribution industries, other verticals are also registering varying levels of adoption.

Mobility adoption trends uncovered by Springboard include strong growth in instant messaging, business applications, and conferencing , with pharmaceutical and healthcare strong contributors to mobility growth, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) growing steadily, and manufacturing and retail evolving markets.
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