European Mobile Forecast, 2008-2013
Phenomenal growth in mobile adoption and in SMS volumes over the last decade has resulted in very high expectations in the industry about the future of new mobile services, raising hopes that they will follow similar adoption rates.
Reality is they failed to do so until recently despite (too?) early launches at the beginning of the decade. However, drivers are now in place for mobile services to reach critical mass. This new report aims at quantifying the main market trends in Europe with a new set of data with detailled forecast for 17 European countries.
It will soon be followed by 2 new reports: Mobile Messaging Forecast and Mobile Media Forecast. For the first time they will include some activity levels (free audiences) to be able to seize the advertising opportunity as the industry is moving away from a pure paid content approach. We have also included flat-rate adoption rates (for mobile Internet tariff), a key metric to follow now that operators are bundling data options in their pay monthly tariffs (such as Orange with its Origami offering or Vodafone, see here). After voice (per minute), voice packages, SMS per units, SMS options, unlimited SMS bundled into voice, data options, unlimited data packages from 2005 onwards (Web'n'walk, X-series…). Now comes the time of voice+unlimited data and this will be a game changer, even if such a transition will not happen overnight.