Mobile World Congress 2013
high profile at the show this year - although it seems to have a high profile at every show. The GSMA made numerous efforts to promote NFC from registration to buying your lunch at the venue. Several new initiatives were announced by the likes of Visa, MasterCard, Samsung and PayPal, and competition is certainly emerging between PayPal and Visa & MasterCard.
Samsung demonstrated a variety of NFC technologies and while there are a number of interesting projects using NFC it still remains to be seen as to whether, apart from a few successes here and there, whether NFC will become a major part of consumer’s lives. According to research from ABI a total of $191 billion in NFC m-Payments is expected by 2017 (ABI Research). While the new venue came with what several observers called new enthusiasm and lots of positive perspectives about the direction and the growth of the mobile industry, little seemed to be said about the growing gap that is appearing between fast-growing US telecoms companies and their struggling European counterparts. The European market is not only struggling with prolonged recession but operators are competing in an overcrowded market with tough regulations which means that for many operators in Europe they are unable to invest in faster networks. Europe has about 100 mobile firms compared to six in the United States, and there have been four straight years of falling revenues. Companies in Europe are finding it
harder to raise or borrow money and have
become increasingly wary of funding upgrades to their networks. To keep up with the smartphone and tablet computer boom, global carriers must invest $800 billion in their networks through to 2016, according to the GSA, notably on fourth generation (4G) mobile technology and fibre broadband that offer up to ten times faster internet speeds. Commenting on the recent auction of 4G mobile spectrum in the UK Ed Richards, Ofcom’s chief executive, said that the amount raised was lower than forecast because 'we are in very, very different times'.
Victor Basta, managing director of Magister Advisors an M&A advisory firm to the technology industry said, “The disappointing revenues are a reflection of the challenges that mobile operators face in growing revenues from their users in the social media age. Data-heavy social media services are causing huge growth in data traffic across mobile networks. Mobile operators increasingly find themselves in a role that is about supporting end users’ social networking habits, with little, if any, commercial benefit.”
Despite that Ofcom believes that 4G will provide £20bn of benefits for UK
consumers over the next 10 years. Smartphone and tablet computer users can expect to see the roll out of super fast download speeds. According to Andrew Green, VP of Marketing for Mobile Computing at Sierra Wireless, “4G is a game changer, particularly for operators, who will be able to provide much better service consistently across their networks at a lower cost. For the average user, it means being truly mobile, able to do the same things online on-the-go that you can do at home on your wired connection.” Based on a GSA presentation, the mobile industry currently employs around 8 million people directly in 2012, and pumps $490 billion directly into the global economy. The mobile industry ecosystem is expected to contribute over $10 trillion to global GDP in the next 5 years, while CAPEX spending by the industry is set to top $1.1 billion in the five years to 2017. While both mobile subscribers and mobile broadband connections are expected to grow mobile data growth over the next five years is expected to jump by 66%.
According to Wireless Intelligence, developing economies are driving 42% of the global mobile revenues in 2012, but this number is expected to jump to 50% by 2017.
So while emerging economies, the US, Japan and South Korea are investing heavily in their networks European companies are struggling. As a result they are building 4G and fibre broadband but only very slowly, leaving swathes of Europe poorly covered. ■
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
April 2013 15
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