The Population Reference Bureau confirmed in late October that the world population had finally surpassed 7 billion. Less than one month later, the number of global mobile connections is set to top 6 billion, further highlighting the importance and widespread adoption of mobile devices. People in all corners of the world have taken to owning multiple devices that would be categorized as mobile connections — cell phones, tablets, connected notebooks and more — but the GSMA points to the Asia Pacific region as the driving force behind the explosive growth. According to the firm’s recent Asia Pacific Mobile Observatory 2011 report, the APAC region accounts for nearly half of all mobile connections globally. “Asia Pacific is one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, through an impressive combination of investment and innovation,” GSMA Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer Tom Phillips said in a statement. “China alone currently has 940 million total mobile connections, exceeding the total number of connections in Europe and the US combined.” The GSMA’s full press release follows below.

Global Mobile Connections to Reach Six Billion Milestone, With Asia Pacific Accounting for Half, Reports GSMA

GSMA Calls for Greater Spectrum Allocation, Lower Taxes and Rebalanced Regulatory Frameworks to Further Extend Mobile Connectivity Throughout Asia Pacific

HONG KONG, Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Mobile Asia Congress – The GSMA today announced that global mobile connections will reach six billion by the end of November 2011 and that the Asia Pacific region, a major driving force behind the global mobile sector, accounts for half of these connections. According to the GSMA Asia Pacific Mobile Observatory 2011 report(1), mobile penetration in Asia Pacific will reach a landmark three billion connections in Q1 2012 – nearly two years earlier than projected in the region’s 2009 Mobile Observatory. By 2015, it is expected that the region will reach 4.1 billion connections, growing at twice the rate of Europe and North America, and will account for 40 per cent of mobile data traffic worldwide.

Tom Phillips, Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer, GSMA commented: “Asia Pacific is one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, through an impressive combination of investment and innovation. China alone currently has 940 million total mobile connections, exceeding the total number of connections in Europe and the US combined.”

The extensive growth in penetration of mobile services in Asia Pacific – from just 12 per cent in 2002 to 78 per cent in 2011 – is largely due to mobile operators in the region’s major markets investing an average of 16.3 per cent of their revenues into capital expenditure, significantly higher than their counterparts in other parts of the world. Other key factors include:

• Investment in Mobile Broadband infrastructure, as many operators across the region are already driving HSPA+/LTE rollouts;
• Cost-effective pre-paid services (84 per cent of Asia Pacific connections versus 66 per in Europeand 15 per cent in USA/Canada);
• Introduction of low-cost handsets and reduction in mobile usage prices;
• Innovative business models including infrastructure sharing and unique distribution strategies, making the expansion of network coverage to rural areas economically viable for operators and consumers; and
• Limited fixed-line infrastructure, driving many consumers to adopt mobile communications.

Social and Economic Contribution of the Mobile Industry to Asia Pacific

Mobile connectivity has rendered significant social and economic benefits for the Asia Pacific region. The mobile market across the AP17(2) countries currently generates an estimated US$485 billion, or 2.7 per cent of total GDP, with mobile operators alone contributing over US$310 billion in 2010. The industry is also a significant contributor to employment in the region, with approximately 11.4 million people either directly or indirectly employed through the mobile ecosystem.

However, as impressive as Asia Pacific’s mobile connectivity growth has been, its largest countries by population, China and India, have penetration rates at just over 60 per cent, which means that approximately one billion people in these two countries alone are still without a mobile connection. Meanwhile, other markets such as Pakistan and Bangladesh still have mobile penetration rates below 60 per cent.

Mobile Broadband Readiness Index (MBRI)

According to the Observatory’s inaugural Mobile Broadband Readiness Index (MBRI)(3), the 17 largest markets in Asia Pacific are actively cultivating a mobile ecosystem that is conducive to further growth. In 2010, Japan was at the top of the index, driven by its early HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE rollouts and its pro-innovation environment. Hong Kong and Vietnam also featured strongly demonstrating their commitment to fostering a prosperous Mobile Broadband landscape.

However, although the results of this Index indicate markets’ ‘preparedness’ for increased growth, they also demonstrate how key barriers such as insufficient spectrum, ineffective regulatory policy and taxation inhibit connectivity and major socioeconomic benefits delivered through Mobile Broadband services.

The GSMA Observatory finds that there is scope for far greater progress to ‘connect the unconnected’ across the Asia Pacific region and is calling for the following measures:

• Optimise spectrum allocation and licensing

The Observatory has found that the majority of Asia Pacific countries still lack sufficient spectrum, which is preventing a full range of voice and data services being made available for consumers across the region. To ensure the delivery of mobile services at the lowest possible cost and to allow consumers to use the widest selection of devices, the mobile industry needs allocation of internationally harmonised frequency bands and implementation of internationally harmonised band plans.

• Drive effective taxation

The GSMA is also calling for mobile industry taxes in Asia Pacific to be reduced in order to drive mobile penetration, and, ultimately, increase the total tax intake for governments. For example, the Bangladeshmobile sector is one of the most heavily taxed amongst developing nations, where no less than six different taxes are in place, resulting in the lowest mobile penetration rate among the AP17 countries (49 per cent).

• Rebalance regulatory frameworks

The GSMA is also an advocate of rebalancing regulatory frameworks to address new players in the growing mobile ecosystem. Overall, the market power of mobile data service providers, device manufacturers and operating system providers in the mobile sector is growing rapidly, as are their revenues from mobile services.

“This situation needs to be redressed, both to ensure that major players in the mobile sector do not remain below the regulatory radar, and to bring transparency to the sector, which in turn will help stimulate investment and growth,” continued Phillips. “A more balanced regulatory framework and strategic public and private partnerships would have a significant impact in decreasing the costs of handsets, increasing the availability of cost-effective pre-paid services and propelling both domestic and foreign investment. The sum of these factors would support Asia Pacific reaching 100 per cent mobile penetration and enable the full extent of the economic and social benefits of Mobile Broadband services to be realised.”

To view the full report, please follow this link: www.gsmworld.com/MO

We’re here at Mobile World Congress awaiting Mr. Eric Schmidt to begin his keynote. Last year, Schmidt gave his talk to boisterous crowd, with some users even tossing a few boos in his direction. Everyone looks polite enough this year, and the Google front-man is due out shortly. Hit the jump to hear exactly what Mr. Schmidt has to say. Enoy!

Twenty four of the world’s largest  mobile operators along with LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and the GSMA have come together to create the Wholesale Applications Community, an open, international applications platform. The motley group will create an application store that could potentially reach 3 billion customers worldwide by using an open standard which would allow developers to publish applications across multiple device platforms and operators. The group is working closely with WC3 standard bodies to create one standard application development solution based upon JIL (Join Innovations Lab) spearheaded by Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, China Mobile and Softbank and OMTP’s BONDI framework. If this group can bring all these disparate platforms and distribution methods together under one umbrella, they could introduce applications to a enormous amount of mass market and smartphones and could potentially create an app store that could rival Apple’s app store in sheer volume alone. Though the issues of supporting such a wide range of networks, form factors, OS versions and more might be its limiting factor.

Read

It’s no big secret that industry awards are often nothing more than a sham with awards earmarked here and there so that each company can walk away with another excuse for a bad press release. Some of the awards given out this past Tuesday at the Global Mobile Awards in Barcelona however, are making us scratch our heads more than usual. We don’t mean to single out any companies in particular, but when we saw that RIM’s SurePress got the nod for the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough we were absolutely flabbergasted. Breakthrough in what way? And don’t give us that whole “precision typing and navigation enables a whole [sic] range of applications and features that have not been possible on a touchscreen mobile device” spin that some random PR intern cooked up.

We honestly struggled for a long time to think of a single application for the Storm that is better than any of the alternatives for other touchscreen handsets and we simply couldn’t do it. Now before some of you go off and start whining about how “BGR hates BlackBerry” you should know how untrue that is — there’s room enough in our hearts and on our belts for all phones. If you knew how many BlackBerry devices we’ve owned (and still own) collectively, you’d know how much we love the ‘Berry. The simple fact of the matter is the more time we spend with SurePress the more frustrated we get with it.

We would love for a company to come up with a touchscreen that issued the same sensation one feels when typing on a physical keypad, but until it happens with a capacitive keypad we plain and simply aren’t interested in it. Why? Because technology such as SurePress slows down even the most basic tasks. Typing a quick email on the Storm can be rather frustrating as half of the time typing any text requires that you momentarily pause while the screen “clicks” and resets to its natural position, thus allowing you to type the next character. It’s definitely something that some people can live with, but we bet you would be shocked at the number of times we hear from people who have a Storm along with other touchscreen devices like the Touch Diamond, Omnia or iPhone and say they can no longer stand the Storm because of its keypad.

If only RIM would have set its sights less on trying to outdo Apple (denying the fact that RIM wanted the Storm to be an “iPhone” killer is preposterous) with gimmicky technology. It could easily have selected a pre-existing capacitive touchscreen and created a heavily modified OS to better suit it. Had it chosen to do so, we think RIM would have hit one so hard it might have hit the lighting at Tigers Stadium. But instead RIM wasted time, money and credibility because it tried to do something that it just isn’t ready for or fully-capable of doing. It’s a damn shame too, because we were really rooting for RIM to have a unanimous hit on its hands.

Read