Mobile players will need to invest $4 trillion by 2020, said the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in its report commissioned by Qualcomm.
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“With mobile broadband connections expected to exceed 8 billion by 2020, demand for additional capacity will continue to accelerate,” said Steve Mollenkopf, chief executive officer of Qualcomm Incorporated.
Mobile companies invested $1.8 trillion in capital expenditures (Capex) and R&D from 2009 through 2013.
The mobile technologies industry generated revenues of nearly $3.3 trillion in 2014 and is directly responsible for 11 million jobs, said BCG that examined mobile use and benefits in six countries: the U.S., Germany, South Korea, Brazil, China, and India.
The benefit consumers receive from mobile technologies over and above what they pay amounts to $6.4 trillion. This exceeds the GDP of every country in the world except that of the U.S. and China.
Consumers in the developed economies (the U.S., Germany, and South Korea) value mobile technologies at upward of $6,000 per year, or 12 percent of their income.
Consumers in the emerging economies place an higher value on mobile relative to their income. In China and India, the consumer-reported value of mobile exceeds 40 percent of average income.
SMEs
SMEs that adopt advanced mobile technologies increase revenues up to two times faster and add jobs up to eight times faster than their peers.
The mobile divide is poised to increase. Closing the mobile divide among SMEs in the six countries would add 7 million jobs over the next three years and increase GDP growth by 0.5 percentage points.
Mobile technologies currently contribute more than $1.2 trillion in GDP in the six countries, which accounts for almost half of global GDP (47 percent). This equates to 2 to 4 percent of each country’s GDP, and 11 percent in the case of South Korea.
In the U.S., the 3.2 percent GDP generated by mobile technologies exceeds the GDP of such essential industries as entertainment, transportation, automobile, hospitality, and agriculture.
Consumer adoption of 3G and 4G standards is growing to nearly 3 billion connections in less than 15 years and projected to exceed 8 billion connections by 2020.
Mobile data speeds have soared — 4G networks offer 12,000 times faster data-transmission speeds than 2G networks, while user costs have plummeted. Smartphones are now available for as little as $40.
90 percent of 3G and 4G consumers want even faster data speeds, more coverage, more battery life, and many other improvements.
Baburajan K
[email protected]
