Mobile Internet, telecom revenue predictions by GSMA

CDN technology image by AkamaiNearly 337 million new people in India will be added to mobile networks by 2020, according to GSMA’s Global Mobile Trends report.

Globally, more than one billion new people will be connected to mobile networks by the end of the current decade.

India will achieve significant growth in mobile subscriber base, overtaking China. For comparison, China will add more than 200 million subscribers. Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar are the other growth markets. These six Asian markets will account for approximately 60 per cent of the 1.1 billion new subscribers added globally by the end of the decade.

GSMA’s Global Mobile Trends report has also revealed predictions on mobile Internet, mobile revenue growth, importance of content for telecom network operators, artificial intelligence (AI), among others.

Mobile Internet

Mobile internet user base will increase to 60 percent of the population by 2020 from 46 percent of the global population.

There will only be a minimal increase in the number of fixed internet households over this period.

The availability and affordability of 3G / 4G devices and networks is contributing to the growth in mobile Internet. Fast-growth markets where mobile internet penetration is currently low include India (32 percent of the population) and Sub-Saharan Africa (25 percent).

Smartphones

Smartphone adoption rate in India stands at 25 percent and unit volumes are growing by 30 percent a year.

For comparison, smartphone penetration in the UK stands at 71 percent of mobile connections. This compares to 60-70 percent across the rest of Europe, 75 percent in the US, and above 80 percent in some Asian markets such as South Korea and Singapore.

The study predicts that several low-income countries (with per capita GDP below $10,000) will have smartphone adoption rates of 60–70 percent by 2020.

Shift in revenue

Revenue from mobile services worldwide is forecast to grow by around 2 percent annually through to 2020. Organic revenue growth is slowing in line with slowing subscriber growth, but is being offset by new revenue opportunities resulting from rising mobile internet adoption and the move to higher-speed networks.

GSMA said annual revenue from voice, SMS and mobile data will surpass $1.5 trillion by 2020. The contribution from these services will fall from 41 percent today to 38 percent by 2025. Revenue from content services – services such as Netflix and Spotify – will increase from 3 percent of ecosystem revenue today to 17 percent by 2025.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as the catalyst that will accelerate a number of emerging sectors, including connected cars and smart homes. Personal assistants (or bots) will be one of the early battlegrounds in AI led by the likes of Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. AI attracted $2.3 billion in venture capital last year.

Baburajan K