Asia Expected to Drive Mobile Growth, Smartphone Is King, GSMA Says
Asia is poised to become the growth engine for mobile, with an estimated 1 billion additional people expected to connect to mobile networks by 2020, GSMA reported. About a third of the new users will come from India, an estimated…
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337 million, “underlining the country’s increasing position as the world’s most significant mobile growth market, overtaking China,” GSMA said. China is projected to add more than 200 million subscribers, with major net subscriber contributions expected from Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. “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 said. Another major trend is that mobile internet is now the internet, GSMA said. “Today 46 per cent of the global population is using mobile phones to access the internet, a figure forecast to increase to 60 per cent by 2020,” the report said. "As there will only be a minimal increase in the number of fixed internet households over this period, the increase in mobile phone ownership will therefore be the key factor driving global internet penetration.” GSMA said even in low-income markets, the smartphone is “king,” and smartphones may now be the most commonly owned consumer electronics device globally. “In the UK, for example, smartphone penetration now stands at 71 per cent of mobile connections,” the report said. “This compares to 60-70 per cent across the rest of Europe, 75 per cent in the US, and above 80 per cent in some Asian markets such as South Korea and Singapore.” Smartphone growth has plateaued in most developed markets, GSMA said. “By contrast, the smartphone adoption rate in India stands at only 25 per cent and unit volumes are growing by 30 per cent a year.”