Smartphones surge, spur telco revenues

Beverley Head
Monday, 23 August 2010 18:44

IT Industry - Market

Demand for smartphones is surging across Asia Pacific, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, and is tipped to generate billions of dollars in additional revenues for regional telcos. By 2015 62 per cent of mobiles sold in Australia will class as smartphones, up from just 2 per cent last year according to analyst Frost & Sullivan.

It should be music to telecommunications companies’ ears as smartphone users’ phone bills can double as a result of their increased use of mobile networks. The 2010 Asia-Pacific Mobile Device & Smartphone Outlook released today, finds that the incremental data usage from smartphones will generate over US$38 billion for operators in the Asia-Pacific region up from just over US$1.3 billion in 2009.

Telecommunications companies are already feeling the effects of the migration toward smartphones. Earlier this month Telstra reported it had connected 1.6 million smartphones to its network, contributing to the $787million of mobile broadband revenues it racked up during FY10, up from just $86m four years ago.

“Smartphones are critical to every operator’s mobile broadband business case, as a smartphone user’s ARPU (average revenue per user) typically increased by 25 to 100 percent after adoption depending on the market,” according to Marc Einstein, Frost & Sullivan industry manager.

Speaking from Japan, Mr Einstein sheeted home much of the surge in demand for smartphones to Apple and the iPhone which he described as “the shot that was heard around the world.” Although 3G networks have been rolled out since 2001, he said smartphones only entered the mass market in 2007.

Such has been the speed of uptake that by 2015 Frost & Sullivan predicts 54 percent of all devices sold in the Asia Pacific region will be smartphones, up from only five percent in 2009.