A very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2016 to you and your family. Hope you had a good holiday and area ready to take on the new year with vigor and purpose. My thanks to all who participated in our 9th annual Mobile Predictions Survey. It is a unique polling of the insiders to get a glimpse into what the ecosystem is thinking about the future.
As I have mentioned before, we are entering the Connected Intelligence Era and the mobile industry is growing beyond its traditional borders to transform every vertical industry and by extension – the global GDP. Proof is in the numbers. 7 Zettabytes of digital information created. 1.3 billion smartphones sold. 31 Exabytes of mobile data traffic (which btw will grow 15x+ in the next 5 years). 72 million wearables sold. 16 billion connected devices. Almost half trillion dollars in data revenues. Quarter billion dollars in OTT revenues. At least 62 companies generating a billion or more from 4th wave. At least 8 companies generating a billion or more from IoT.
The improving economy empowered consumers to spend more. Europe is starting to come out of the 2008 recession. Asia is on fire. Any slow-down in China has been picked up by startups in India who are transforming the commerce landscape. Even remote islands like Tonga are LTE-enabled and citizens everywhere have access to high-speed broadband networks. Affordability remains a key issue to address to bring in the next billions into the fold.
IoT emerged as a big category last year and we are just starting. While the potential is unlimited, industry needs to come together on a number of issues around fragmentation, security, policy, and privacy. The fact that we are selling more non-phone devices than phone devices on cellular networks in the US should be a hint of things to come. 2015 saw a wave of consolidation and we will continue to see stronger player get more aggressive this year across domains which is very exciting. We passed the mid-point of this decade and most certainly, the next five years are going to be full of action, surprises, and transformation. Stay with us and we will keep you posted.
We do our annual survey to engage our knowledgeable community on trends and events to keep an eye on. The composite view gives a glimpse into the future scenarios. Executives, developers, and insiders from leading mobile companies and startups from across the value chain and from the around the globe participated to educate us on what to expect of 2016. The survey draws upon the unique collective wisdom of the folks who are making it happen. Thanks for being part of the annual ritual.
25 names were randomly drawn for the limited edition of the Mobile Future Forward 2015 book and they have been notified. Congrats.
Welcome 2016!
Kind regards,
Chetan Sharma
