Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Feb. 26, 2009

A new survey published by research firm IDC predicts the global mobile industry will remain relatively unscathed from the current global economic crisis. IDC is saying that it could even benefit from it to a certain degree.

Overall, the mobile phone and wireless industry has become the dominant driver of the global telecommunications sector and serves about 47 percent of the world’s population, according to the report led by IDC analyst Shiv Bakhshi.

As of Nov. 30 of last year, there were 3.6 billion wireless subscriptions in the $700 billion mobile industry, but by 2012, those numbers are expected to increase to $855 billion among 4.9 billion subscriptions, according to the IDC report.

“Since mobile communications are such a critical infrastructure today, it's going to fare in this downturn a little better. There is going to be a minor impediment on the road to continued growth,” said Bakhshi.

But certain segments of the market will suffer more than others, and the rollout of wireless technologies in developed countries will follow a different trajectory than growth in developing markets, according to IDC.

Nevertheless, the industry will still likely experience a lag in sales for network infrastructure, mobile devices, various chipsets and software.

Spending “will remain constant because there is a need to continue to invest in networks,” Bakhshi said.

Bright points include the development of 3G networks in China and India. China recently issued 3G licenses and India is on the verge of also allocating spectrum for 3G service.

For network infrastructure, the market is forecast to decline to $50.7 billion this year compared with $51.2 billion last year, according to the study. In 2013, spending is expected to be around the $50 billion mark.

Overall, LTE technology will figure prominently in the equation as Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and NTT DoCoMo in Japan are looking at aggressive rollout schedules. Indeed, Verizon Wireless recently announced its LTE vendors (Alcatel-Lucent and L.M. Ericsson) and plans to launch commercial LTE service in 2010.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

    This article was featured on Business 5.0 and on Tech Blog.

Source: IDC.