2012: time for operators to cash in on mobile growth
In 2009, the GSMA predicted 6 billion mobile phone connections worldwide by 2013. We’re already just about there--and growing faster than ever. The GSMA expects more than 12 billion connections by 2020.
Mobile phones are just the beginning of this growth story.
Think about your own mobile usage: How many Internet-connected devices are in your home? Many people have doubled--or even tripled--that number since last year and the trend is expected to continue.
Now scale that growth beyond your house to your neighborhood, city and country. Then factor in the explosive growth of machine-to-machine (M2M) devices. Much of the growth toward the 12 billion connections by 2020 will happen in the coming year.
In 2012, you’ll see many more “connected homes.” Walk into your local electronic stores and you can see why. Increasingly, TVs and Blu-Ray players are equipped with WiFi connections. Set-top boxes are being slowly replaced by connected devices such as Apple TV. Consequently, more and more transactions take place directly between cloud providers and users, bypassing carriers almost completely except to stream more traffic over their networks.
In addition, the healthcare, automotive and energy industries will solidify the groundwork for revolutionary M2M structures. Utility companies will implement more smart grid solutions. More and more devices will transmit data to the mobile Internet. And many will continue to run third party services, often delivered from the cloud.
People are relying on the mobile Internet for more things than ever--from their personal communications, to business, to keeping the lights on. Yet operators’ role seems to be diminishing.
Of course, if the operators’ network goes down, so do all of these services. But operators don’t see much additional revenue in that model. Users expect good quality of service. The key is for operators to provide unique value for both end users and third party application providers--beyond quality of service--to turn mobile Internet growth into a golden opportunity.
Operators need to make changes to their networks and business models. They need smarter networks that enable them to create new, two-sided business models. The time is now. By making the right moves in 2012, they can really start to profit from the exploding growth.
What are the right moves? I’ll give you my thoughts next week as part of a groundbreaking new study on exactly how much smart network strategies can help operators increase their cash returns.
