A very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2018 to you and your family. Hope you had a good holiday and are ready to take on the new year with vigor and purpose. My thanks to all who participated in our 11th 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. By 2020. 44 Zettabytes of digital information will be created. Over 420 Exabytes of mobile data traffic (which btw will grow 15x+ in the next 5 years). More than 26 billion connected devices. At least 95 companies generating a billion or more from 4th wave. At least 8 companies generating a billion or more from IoT.
The improved economy empowered consumers to spend more. Europe came back strong. China slowed down but its heavyweights performed well. India continues to be buoyed by a strong economy. There are many new areas for exploration in 2018. Affordability remains a key issue to address to bring in the next billions into the fold.
There were a number of big stories in 2017 – security and privacy breaches, big M&As, attempted M&As, rise of AI/ML, regulatory tussles, the utter domination of the big 5, acceleration of 5G hype, discussions, and trials, iPhone X, sharing economy, price wars, IoT, AR/VR, Messaging, and much more. 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. Given the rise of AI in 2017, the role of data will take centerstage in 2018 from all dimensions. 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 us informed. 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 around the globe participated to educate us on what to expect of 2018. The survey draws upon the unique collective wisdom of the folks who are making it happen. Thanks for being part of the annual ritual.
5 names were randomly drawn for the limited edition of the Mobile Future Forward 2017 book and they have been notified. Congrats.
Welcome 2018!
Kind regards,
Chetan
Survey Questions:
- What was most newsworthy in Mobile 2017?
- What will be the biggest mobile stories of 2018?
- Who are the top 4 important players in the mobile ecosystem?
- What will be the breakthrough categories in mobile in 2018?
- What will be the most popular consumer mobile applications in 2018?
- Who will dominate the mobile payment/commerce space?
- Who will make the biggest mobile acquisition in 2018?
- Who is doing the most interesting work in the IoT space?
- Who will dominate the Autonomous Vehicles race?
- What’s the most convincing use case for 5G?
- Which category will generate the most mobile data revenue in 2018?
- Which region will end up leading the world in 5G by 2020?
- Which protocol will dominate IoT Communications?
- The company bringing the most successful mobile gadget of the year – 2017 and 2018?
- Mobile company of the year – 2017 and 2018?
- Automation and Digitization of industries will lead to?
- Which of the following are likely to happen in 2018?
- What category will be impacted the most by mobile in the next 5 years?
- Which segments are likely to get disintermediated the most by algorithms in the next 5 years?
- Who was and will be the mobile person of the year?
