It’s a good time to be a wireless carrier. According to Forrester Forecast analyst Susan Huynh, the number of mobile broadband users will exceed the number of PC broadband users by 2016. This bold prediction is based on the current number of mobile phone owners which will total 4.3 billion or half of the world’s population by the end of 2012.
Developing nations are the biggest untapped market for mobile phones and will fuel this growth in the upcoming years. Not surprisingly, these areas tend to have a low penetration of landline internet connections and cheap mobile data prices. Combined, these factors make it easy for customers to choose a mobile connection over a landline one. It will be slow, but eventually, Huynh believes the number of mobile connections will eclipse the landline ones.
If this prediction plays out as expected, then we are only at the beginning of the mobile revolution. We can look forward to a lot more phones, even more apps and a surge in everything related to mobile.
[Via Forrester; image via Shutterstock]