Data Services to Grab 34% of North American Mobile Business Spending by 2012, According to ABI Research

Business Wire, Oct 17, 2007

NEW YORK -- ABI Research survey results have shown that North American business customers spend 23% more on mobile services than consumers do. But until now, mobile productivity application development has lagged behind mobile entertainment services development, limiting the opportunities for serving the business customer. That is now starting to change and by 2012, driven by mobile productivity applications, data services will account for more than one third of North American business's mobile services spending. Such applications increase employee productivity and have demonstrable ROI, and as a result can command high ARPUs.

Principal analyst Dan Shey says, "Mobile operators have served all customers very well with mobile entertainment including ringtones, games and video downloads. But what are the opportunities for all value chain players to serve business customers with applications that help them perform their jobs every day?"

In a new market data product, ABI Research answers this question by providing forecasts for North American business customer applications and services in six service categories covering all voice and data mobile productivity applications. They show that data services will gradually become a larger share of wallet for the business customer, equaling 34% in North America by 2012. Moreover, the ecosystem that will serve up data services to the business customer is complex, so many different companies that enable mobile data services can participate.

But the opportunity varies depending on the type of business customer. Shey comments, "Whether you are a developer or a wireless operator, you need to understand the differences in adoption and usage of different service categories for different customer segments. This data will drive product development efforts, acquisition considerations, and marketing and distribution strategies in a highly competitive mobile environment. Without this information, resources could be misaligned, and opportunities missed."

"North American Business Mobility Vertical Market Analysis" (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/market_data/North_American_ Business_Mobility_Vertical_Market_Analysis) provides a detailed view of customers, ARPUs and service penetration for communications, information access, computing, integrated information access/computing, and business process solutions, broken down by 20 industry verticals, by 22 occupations, and by four business size categories, SOHO, Small, Medium and Large businesses. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

It forms part of the Business Mobility Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Business_Mobility_ Research_Service), which also includes other Market Data products, Research Reports, ABI Insights, and analyst inquiry support. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York, ABI Research maintains global operations supporting annual research programs, intelligence services, and market reports in broadband and multimedia, RFID and M2M, wireless connectivity, mobile wireless, transportation, and emerging technologies. For information, visit www.abiresearch.com, or call 1.516.624.2500.