Asia now is the growth driver of the global mobile industry, says the GSMA Global Mobile Trends report.
Within Asia, India now has become the mobile industry’s key growth market,
More than one billion additional people worldwide will be connected to mobile networks by 2020 and 33 percent of these new users will come from India (337 million)
China is forecast to add more than 200 million subscribers and there will also be major net subscriber contributions from Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
In total, these six Asian markets will account for approximately 60 percent of the 1.1 billion new subscribers added globally by the end of the decade.
The GSMA report also argues that the “mobile Internet is the Internet.” Today, some 46 percent of the global population gets access the internet by a mobile device and network. By 2020, mobile Internet access will grow to 60 percent.
New mobile subscribers are more likely to be younger and are also more likely to be ‘mobile-first’ or ‘mobile-only’ internet users.
As there will only be a minimal increase in the number of fixed internet households over this period, the increase in mobile phone ownership will therefore be the key factor driving global internet penetration, GSMA says.
