Mobile technologies and services in 2017 generated 4.5 percent of global GDP, with 3.6 trillion US dollars in added value, and as this industry intensively grows and permeates all sectors, it is expected to reach 4.6 trillion dollars or a share of five percent in global GDP by 2022.
These and other data about the mobile industry were published by the global association GSMA at the Mobile World Congress (MWC-World Mobile Industry Congress), which is held in Barcelona from February 26 to March 1, organized by GSMA, with more than 2,300 exhibitors.
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– The mobile industry increasingly contributes to economic growth and the recognition of social challenges, striving to make the world a better place and create platforms so that mobile phones and the internet are not just devices and means of communication but serve for many other life-essential things, said GSMA’s marketing director Michael O’Hara.
Mobile technologies are increasingly used for preparedness and response to disasters and challenges in numerous industries, such as healthcare, agriculture, utilities, education, finance, and others.
He emphasized that more and more countries are enjoying the benefits of improved productivity and increased consumption of mobile services, and besides contributing to economic growth, the mobile industry directly and indirectly employs 29 million people worldwide and contributes to the public sector with 500 billion dollars from general taxation and 25 billion dollars from mobile spectrum auctions.
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– The adoption of mobile tools and solutions is growing worldwide, driving digitalization as a new platform for the fourth industrial revolution, which is rapidly changing the world through innovations and the use of artificial intelligence systems, machine learning, robotics, big data analytics, ‘augmented reality’, and a range of others, said O’Hara.
Noting that these processes are unstoppable and more than ever require cooperation at all levels, especially between policymakers, regulators, and operators, he stated that the almost constant twenty-year growth in the number of mobile device subscribers, and in recent years, mobile internet users, is a confirmation of this.
Unstoppable Growth of the Mobile Industry
From this perspective, GSMA marked 2017 as a milestone for the mobile industry, as the number of people connected to mobile services exceeded five billion, and those on mobile internet reached 3 billion worldwide. However, there is still room for growth, and they predict that by 2025, the number of unique mobile subscribers will rise to nearly 6 billion globally, which will be about 72 percent of the world’s population.
The industry sees even greater growth opportunities in mobile internet, whose number of users could increase to five billion by that year, with China and India playing a major role, where more than 300 million new mobile internet users emerge almost every year.
– With this development, mobile internet becomes crucial for measuring the reach of the mobile industry, especially in a situation where the number of ‘ordinary’ mobile subscribers is slowing down, and thus for the industry’s contribution to the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDG), as well as the development of a broader digital ecosystem, important for e-commerce, ‘fintech’, and the range of delivered services and content, emphasized GSMA’s lead analyst Mark Giles.
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With new technologies, led by 5G, whose stronger and broader application in Europe and the world is announced for 2020, the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) will also increase more than threefold between 2017 and 2025, when it could reach 25 billion.
Internet technologies will be particularly present in the segments of consumer electronics, smart homes, industrial facilities, cities, but also in the focus of investors for financing and supporting the innovation ecosystem.
– In 2019, we expect 4G to become the leading mobile network technology, ten years after its initial launch, followed by 5G, devices, and connections that will support it, with China, the USA, and Japan leading the way, followed by Europe. Overall, these four economies will account for about 70 percent of the total 1.2 billion 5G connections expected by around 2025, Giles stated.
This will also mean significant capital investments by mobile operators in the period from 2017 to 2020, amounting to about 640 billion dollars worldwide, although this is slightly less than the 730 billion dollars invested in the last four years, when they made considerable efforts to upgrade LTE or 4G networks, or to increase speeds and quality of networks for greater competitiveness, concluded GSMA.
