Screen Digest have released a report on the state of the 3G Mobile broadband market, which makes interesting reading. As many of you know, I’m a big fan of 3G mobile broadband, and think it’s been instrumental in providing good Mobile data access, plus bolstering Mobile Operators’ bottom lines!
Here are some salient stats from the analysis:
- The research reveals that there has been a significant uptake in the usage of mobile broadband in the past two years, especially in Europe.
- The growth in take up of mobile broadband has inevitably fuelled a
pricing war between the operators. - As a result, the overall European market has grown to a value of €1.8bn in 2008 and accounts for 15% of all mobile data revenues.
- However despite its growth, contribution to data revenues and number of subscribers, Ronan de Renesse, Screen Digest mobile analyst expects to see high customer churn rates this year and in 2010.
“The mobile operators have trapped customers into long-term contracts, whilst failing to deliver the unrealistic networks speed that encouraged them to sign up in the first place. The service can be patchy and users become frustrated – many will switch back to fixed broadband if operators don’t act quickly.”
- While European growth is set to reach its lowest in 2010 at only 4.7%, the number of connections will rise again in 2011 and 2012 to reach 22.6m and a total market value of €4.6bn in 2010
Fascinating – the nascent market is going through the explosive growth that Mobile handsets did, and have done, a number times – I really think that Mobile Broadband will eventually become a utility just like many other services – hopefully one that will be ubiquitously available to people too….
You can read more about what Screen Digest do here.