This prediction was produced in an Ericsson Mobility Report that was recently issued by the company.
According to a recent Ericsson Mobility Report, within the global population over the age of 6 years, there will have been a 90 percent penetration of mobile phones by the year 2020, and there will be an estimated 6.1 billion smartphone subscriptions around the world.
The report showed that the markets that will experience the fastest growth include India and China.
India has already seen 18 million new mobile phones subscriptions, and China is anticipated to see 12 million new subscriptions, within the third quarter of this year, alone. In this year as a whole, the report predicted that there will be a worldwide total of 2.7 billion subscriptions when the 800 million new subscriptions that will have been added throughout the year. The report revealed this year’s growth trends while predicting that they will continue at a rapid rate over the five years to follow.
The report also showed that the use of mobile phones in terms of internet traffic will grow in specific areas.
For example, by 2020, of all of the mobile data traffic consumed worldwide, there will be an increase in video traffic to the point that it will make up 55 percent of total data. This will represent an increase in video traffic by ten times.
These forecasts were meant to provide a comprehensive update with regards to mobile trends. The predictions were based on big data that was gleaned from live networks around the world. According to the Ericsson senior vice president, chief strategy officer, and head of M&A, Rima Qureshi, “The falling cost of handsets, coupled with improved usability and increasing network coverage, are factors that are making mobile technology a global phenomenon that will soon be available to the vast majority of the world’s population, regardless of age or location.”
Qureshi went on to add that this most recent report from Ericcson has shown that in six years from now, there will be greater connectivity through subscriptions with mobile phones around the world than has ever been seen.
Even among users of these smartphone based wallets, the services aren’t used for most purchases.
Although mobile payments, as a whole, have started to attract the interest of some consumers, they are not providing the true adoption rates that would be required to call this transaction method an actual mainstream success.
Mobile wallets are being used by only 16 percent of device owners.
Moreover, even among those who actually use them, only very few are using them all that often, says a Yankee Group report that has recently been published. It stated that over the three months before the report, only 16 percent of smartphone owners actually used those devices for making a purchase in store.
The report showed that despite this, two thirds of consumers are actually interested in mobile payments.
The report was titled “U.S. Mobile Wallet Roundup: Gauging the Future Potential of Today’s Solutions”. It explained that while there is widespread interest in these wallets, that is not translating into actual adoption, quite yet. That report also assigned PayPal the top spot within this particular space, as 15 percent of consumers had use the company’s app within the previous month for making a purchase in-store.
Within the report, a Yankee Group analyst named Jordan McKee pointed out that every day seems to produce another level of growth when it comes to mobile wallets. However, the actual success in that area is not quite as defined as the hype, itself. McKee added that despite the fact that there have been massive investments throughout this environment, which have been worth billions of dollars, the actual uptake and use of this technology has been far less than “illustrious”.
Among those who are actually using mobile payments, 73 percent are doing so less than five times per month. This indicates that this type of transaction still has a long way to go before it is the top choice among even those consumers who are actually using it – which are clearly in the minority. It is the opinion of the report that this will not see a drastic “change anytime soon”, though they do feel that there is great potential over time due to the massive consumer interest.
