The industry finds itself at a tipping point in 2011, with major shifts in technology, end-user demands, competition, and maybe, just maybe, its long-standing 20 percent penetration rate.
As you are reading this article, odds are you have a mobile phone within reach. You might even be reading this article on a mobile device via SDM’s digital edition. Even if one is not in reach, you probably still have a mobile phone, making you one of five billion global mobile connections globally, according to the latest report by Wireless Intelligence. There is also the possibility that you have a smartphone — making you one of 45.5 million people who owned a smartphone in 2010 in the United States, according to a study by ComScore. Additionally, Gartner predicts that by 2015, mobile devices will surpass PCs to become the main mode of accessing the Web.
In its own study on smartphones, The Neilson Company’s Roger Entner, senior vice president, Research and Insights, Telecom Practice, echoes this, noting, “We are just at the beginning of a new wireless era where smartphones will become the standard device consumers will use to connect to friends, the Internet and the world at large.”