Peter Dinham
Thursday, 25 June 2009 17:12
Business IT -
Technology
Page 1 of 2
The adoption of new mobile applications and services in the Chinese market offers future opportunities for mobile UC vendors and service providers as China’s SMEs are forecast to continue to spend more on mobile services rather than fixed services.
According to analysts, Ovum, Chinese SMEs are
less exposed to the global economic climate than their counterparts in
other countries, and are expected to continue spending on telecoms
during the downturn.
Ovum Melbourne analyst, Claudio Castelli, says Chinese SMEs are
price-sensitive and more likely to adopt managed and hosted services in
order to avoid up-front capital investments, but recommends caution
when looking at market expectations.
"Even in China, economic growth is slowing considerably. At some stage
it is likely that cash-strapped SMEs will look to cut costs and that
budgets may not be converted into actual spend.”
However, Castelli says that mobility is growing fast among SMEs in
China, with currently six percent of their employees having some degree
of mobility, although he suggests this high level of mobility is not
yet reflected in expenditure on mobile services.
“As is the case in most Asian countries, SMEs in China don’t supply
mobile devices to their employees. Mobile users supply and support
their own personal mobile devices when at work.”
“We believe this practice has a high degree of risk for the business”,
added Castelli, but he said, however this scenario is likely to
change, as SMEs expect their expenditure to grow more on mobile
services than on fixed services.
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