BARCELONA: Over one billion people will become mobile subscribers over the next five years from 2015 to 2020. Mobile operators are expected to invest $1.4 trillion by 2020, in connection with it about 60 percent of the population of world will subscribe to mobile services.
The new GSMA report, ‘The Mobile Economy: 2015’ was published at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
In 2014, the mobile industry contributed USD 3 trillion to the world’s economy, equivalent to 3.8 per cent of global GDP. By 2020, it is estimated that the contribution from the industry will increase to USD 3.9 trillion, representing 4.2 per cent of projected global GDP by this point, the report said.
Growth in new mobile data services and applications, according to the report dubbed “The Mobile Economy: 2015”, will be fuelled by a rapid migration to 3G/4G mobile broadband networks.
“A decade ago, just one in five of the global population was a mobile subscriber – we have now surpassed the 50 per cent milestone and can look forward to connecting a billion new subscribers over the next five years. Mobile sits at the heart of a new ecosystem that is uniting the digital and physical worlds, and powering economic growth. At the same time, mobile operators continue to deploy networks to all corners of the globe, connecting unconnected citizens and addressing socio-economic challenges in areas such as digital and financial inclusion, healthcare and education,” said Anne Bouverot, Director-general of the GSMA.
In 2014, mobile operators invested about $216 billion in capital expenditure, a 9 percent increase from 2013 investment figures. Investment levels are forecast to reach a cumulative $1.4 trillion in the six year period from 2015 through to 2020 and the number of unique mobile subscribers is forecast to increase from 3.6 billion at the end of 2014 to 4.6 billion by 2020, a four per cent increase per year over the period.
