Massive growth for mobile services

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 02 July 2009 09:54

IT Industry - Market

Mobile service operators in the Asia Pacific region are expected to brush aside the impact of the economic downturn and to emerge stronger than ever, with mobile connections worldwide forecast to grow by nearly 60 percent over the next five years to 2014.


While mobile operators are experiencing slower than normal growth at the moment, connections continue to growth, with Ovum predicting 6.42 billion connections globally by the end of 2014, which would represent an increase of 59% over last year, and a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of eight percent.

Before the full impact of the recession was known, Ovum had predicted that global mobile services revenues would breach $1 trillion in 2010, but it’s now forecasting that barrier will be broken a year later, in 2011. And, along with worldwide mobile revenue growth, revenues in the Asia Pacific region for mobile services are predicted by Ovum to grow to $290 billion in 2011.

Ovum’s Nathan Burley says the greatest impact of recessionary forces is seen in the short term, and he has revised Asia Pacific revenue growth forecasts for 2009 down to 8% from 10% in previously published figures, and projected a CAGR from 2008 to 2013 remaining relatively stable at 6.6%.

“The recessionary impact on mobile in Asia, will be relatively muted, and led by China and India, mobile service revenue will continue to grow”, says Burley.

“By 2014 Ovum expects total Asia-Pacific mobile operator service revenues to reach $326 billion,” Burley says, adding that voice will continue to be the largest revenue generator worldwide, accounting for 69% of revenues on a global basis and 66% in Asia-Pacific.”

As a result, says Burley, voice will continue to be mobile’s ‘killer app’, and he says operators must not ignore this fact in the race for data revenues.

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