Telecom network vendor Ericsson today announced top trends to watch for the mobile industry that will drive CTOs to plan their business better.
# Media use patterns are globalizing. Viewers are shifting towards easy-to-use on-demand services that allow cross-platform access to video content. 2015 will be historic as more people will watch streamed video on a weekly basis than broadcast TV.
# Consumers show high interest in having home sensors that alert them to water and electricity issues, or when family members come and go.
# New ways to communicate will continue to appear, offering us even more ways to keep in touch with our friends and family. Many smartphone owners would like to use a wearable device to communicate with others directly through thought – and believe this will be mainstream by 2020.
# The idea of smart cities is intriguing – but a lot of that intelligence may actually come about as a side effect of the changing everyday behaviors of citizens. As the internet makes us more informed, we are in turn making better decisions. Consumers believe traffic volume maps, energy use comparison apps and real-time water quality checkers will be mainstream by 2020.
# As the internet enables us to efficiently share information with unprecedented ease, the idea of a sharing economy is potentially huge. Half of all smartphone owners are open to the idea of renting out their spare rooms, personal household appliances and leisure equipment as it is convenient and can save money.
# 48 percent of smartphone owners would rather use their phone to pay for goods and services. 80 percent believe that the smartphone will replace their entire purse by 2020.
# Though sharing information when there is a benefit is fine, smartphone owners see no point in making all of their actions open to anyone. 47 percent of smartphone owners would like to be able to pay electronically without an automatic transfer of personal information. 56 percent of smartphone owners would like all internet communication to be encrypted.
# Smartphone owners see cloud-based services of various kinds giving them the potential to live healthier and longer lives. Jogging apps, pulse meters and plates that measure our food are believed to help prolong our lives by up to two years per application.
# Consumers are welcoming the idea of having domestic robots that could help with everyday chores. 64 percent also believe this will be common in households by 2020.
# Children will continue to drive the demand for a more tangible internet, where the physical world is as connected as the screens of their devices. 46 percent of smartphone owners say that children will expect all objects to be connected when they are older.
