Mobile Internet Services Market Should Exceed $66 Billion Annually
Yankee Group says that an untapped market for mobile internet services exists, which should already be worth more than US$66 billion per year. Instead, it has only reached US$9.5 billion. The full extent of these services' positive financial and socioeconomic impact has yet to be reached because service providers and their technology partners are not overcoming a wide range of barriers to adoption quickly enough.
As a result, large numbers of consumers are being denied affordable and reliable mobile access to the internet, and service providers are missing out on a huge revenue opportunity.
According to the Yankee Group Report published today, the $66 billion figure for global consumer mobile internet services is a conservative estimate because it refers only to access. It excludes all incremental revenue from the billions of transactions consumers would generate if they had ubiquitous mobile internet access. If operators make it a priority to provide accessible, easy-to-use services, and flat-rate price plans they can drive significant additional growth in mobile data usage and ARPU.
"Demand for mobile access to the internet is far greater than has been achieved to date," said Declan Lonergan, co-author of the Report and director in Yankee Group's Consumer Research group. "Most future projections are also conservative. This is because success of the mobile internet continues to be restrained by several obstacles that litter the path to our vision of ubiquitous connectivity. The true scale of the social and economic impact that can be achieved by extending mobile internet access to millions of new customers would go far beyond the financial metrics that we have modeled. Consumers, businesses and societies would all benefit in unquantifiable terms."
This Yankee Group Report explores the opportunities that improved access to the mobile internet can deliver, both in terms of financial impact and positive socioeconomic effects. As an example, providing individuals with access to high-speed mobile internet services for the first time would enable them to create completely new types of service, around which whole industries would emerge.
Posted to the site on 14th November 2007