The Economic Crisis’ Impact on Mobility

February 25, 2009: While many parts of the information and communications technology sector are being stung by the economic crisis, IDC claims that the mobile telecommunications industry is well-placed to weather the storm.

IDC says that the US$700 (AU$) billion mobile industry now serves almost half of the world's population with 3.6 billion subscriptions at the end of 2008, and while it is likely to see softening of sales in segments such as network infrastructure, mobile devices and chipsets in 2009, other segments such as applications, and services, are likely to only grow and take the economic downturn in their stride.

''Different industry segment are likely to enjoy different growth trajectories, and some will enjoy it more than others,'' said Shiv Bakhshi Ph.D., director of Mobility Research. ''So, for instance, some industry segments, like mobile infrastructure, are likely to settle to a new, marginally lower, baseline stride.''

On a global level, IDC expects the number of mobile connections to continue growing at a substantial pace. From 3.32 billon at the end of 2008, it expects the number of mobile voice connections to reach 4.57 billion by the end of 2012, an average compound growth rate of 8.3% per year.

The most prolific source of new mobile connections will be India, China, and the other large markets in which mobile penetration is currently below 50 percent of the population.

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