Europe I 2011 (15)

Theme: Riding the mobile wave

Mobile is more than a technology; it is a social and economic phenomenon that shows no sign of slowing. Some 80 to 90 per cent of mobiles this year will ship with web browsers and the PC is no longer the primary means of Internet access. Billions who cannot afford a PC can now access the Internet via their mobile phones. Business use of mobile applications is growing strongly and this is transforming business processes and providing unprecedented facilities and economies. Nevertheless, consumers are the biggest – and swiftly growing drivers of demand. Few operators are prepared to handle the growing use of consumer generated data, of social networking of YouTube and other video services and many are hard-pressed to build out their networks fast enough to keep ahead of demand. This demand, for a wide variety of reasons, is likely to hasten the convergence of fixed and wireless networks – indeed, in many regions there seems to be little choice.

Then too, it is not only entertainment and networking that consumers are driving. Mobile money, for example, is just one of many applications that will forever change businesses of all sorts – mMoney will not only realign the financial sector, it will reshape business of all sizes in urban and rural regions alike.

Cloud computing will make it easier for users everywhere to handle applications and access data far beyond the capacity of a hand-held device. Security, handheld device technology, will be increasingly important.

Vendors, operators, service providers, content developers – the entire mobile sector and the entire ICT sector – will all have to face a massive wave of change.