Wireless Intelligence, market intelligence unit of GSMA, pronounced that the mobile world achieved another milestone with its fourth billionth connection. These figures show the phenomenal growth of the mobile industry over the past years.
GSMA also plans to make use of the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to explore further ways to expand the mobile industry while maintaining current levels of development.
Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer of the GSMA commented, “As we enter 2009, the world is in the midst of a broad economic slowdown, one that is impacting every facet of business, every link in the communications value chain. To address the significant challenges facing the global economy, the GSMA and its membership are focused on leveraging mobility to create new opportunities and to drive productivity and prosperity. GSMA industry initiatives in the areas of Mobile Broadband, Mobile Lifestyle and Mobile Planet will help drive this innovation and growth despite the challenges of the global economic downturn.”
As far as the Mobile Broadband initiatives are concerned, the aim is to develop the Mobile Broadband infrastructure where there is still room for growth. Currently, Mobile Broadband accounts for nearly 100 million of the world’s mobile connections but only one-sixth of the world’s population has access to 1.1 billion fixed broadband lines. The MWC will witness different Mobile Broadband implementations from GSMA as well as a conference session on 18th February, 2009. This will be attended by C-level executives from China Unicom, Google, Nokia Siemens Networks, Qualcomm, Skype, Telstra and Verizon Communications.
To drive the Mobile Lifestyle initiatives further, Chris DeWolfe, CEO and Co-founder of MySpace will also be present at the MWC at a special Mobile Backstage conference (19th February, 2009) to give his views on the role of the mobile industry in entertainment. The conference will also concentrate on commercial factors that affect mobile industry and entertainment partner collaboration.
With regard to the Mobile Planet initiatives, the focus will be finding new renewable energy sources to combat electricity difficulties faced by the developing world. The GSMA considers the developing world to be central to mobile industry. The GSMA’s Development Fund will host a “Green Power for Mobile” seminar (18th February, 2009) where methods of expanding off-grid network coverage and ways to reduce OPEX will be considered.
Explaining the importance of WMC, O’Hara added, “Mobile phones have evolved to become broadband-enabled multi-media devices that connect mass markets in mature and emerging markets alike. Mobile World Congress will showcase how the industry will continue to push the boundaries into the mobile future.”
Ultimately, the growth of the mobile industry cannot be underestimated with the global market set to reach six billion connections by 2013.