Despite the looming recession, a new ABI Research study shows that even under the worst recovery scenarios, mobile services revenues will continue to grow at nearly 1.2% through 2014, which is a 0.5% loss over pre-crisis conditions.
According to ABI’s practice director Dan Shey, a long economic recovery places pressures on mobile operators to compete on price, and mobile data services allow them to counter that pressure. However, since each region is different, operators should create strategies that lead customers to maintain ‘nice-to-have’ data services or encourage addition of more utilitarian ones.
North America has been hit hardest, but mobile data services growth will exceed 8% through 2014 even in the worst recovery scenario. As for the Asia Pacific region, operators there derive a large portion of their data revenues from content downloads, and these products would be the first casualties of an extended recession.
Shey went on to add: “Mobile operators need to stress the utility of mobile services and pursue appropriate services personalization initiatives that allow customers to buy and use services in ways that best suit their needs. Business customers should also be a target segment as businesses consider mobile a way to lower costs and increase competitiveness.”
ABI Research’s “World Financial Crisis and the Mobile Services Market” combines survey data with regional economic and mobile demographic factors, providing a quantitative view of potential changes in the mobile services market based on three possible economic recovery scenarios… More information is available from ABI’s website.