Research: Corporate Mobile Services Worth US$15.5bn in 2012

Latin America's telecoms operators are expected to generate US$15.5bn from corporate mobile services in 2012 compared to US$7.2bn in 2006, according to US consultancy Frost & Sullivan.

SMEs are helping to drive this growth as well as large corporations, Frost & Sullivan Latin America ICT research analyst, Andrés Sciarrotta, told BNamericas.

Frost & Sullivan estimates that corporate services will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13%, but the data services component will grow at 37.4%.

"Voice services will not grow as fast, but will still account for 90% of overall revenues [in 2012]," he said.

DATA SERVICES

The most desired data products and services include mobile office type services such as devices to read emails, internet and documents in Word and Excel, he said.

Applications such as Sales Force Automation and Field Force Automation, which give prices and locations of merchandise, are also in demand, according to Sciarrotta.

The adoption of corporate mobile data services varies between countries in Latin America and the growth rate in each depends on when the service was first deployed, according to the analyst.

Brazil and Chile first launched such services in 2004 and 2005 respectively, while countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Argentina are among the first to follow suit, he said, without providing individual growth rates for countries.

Chile and Brazil are expected to continue to grow at a constant level, with Chilean operators now starting to target SMEs, Sciarrotta said.

"Venezuela and Colombia should record strong growth when mobile data services start to take hold at the end of 2007 and 2008," he said.

Sciarrotta believes that by 2012 all of the six Latin American countries Frost & Sullivan studies will have the same level of corporate mobile data services.

The technology can apply to any vertical sectors, but Sciarrotta believes development will be most rapid in the finance, pharmaceutical and transport sectors.

"This is because companies in these sectors have workforces on the street who need to be in constant contact with their employees," he said."

Posted to the site on 9th January 2007