Market trends

The mobile phone has become a global success story, and these little boxes are now much more than just a flexible and convenient way to make phone calls. Today mobile phones are used to transmit and deliver images, music and video, creating a new form of digital mobile communications. And here again, the key technology is mobile broadband Internet. The experts surveyed in this study saw an extremely bright future for mobile broadband Internet in Germany (Fig. 24) – over 70 percent of them forecast dramatic growth in the demand for mobile as well as fixed Internet access. And almost 80 percent expect German access providers to make mobile Internet access a standard product offering over the next few years.

Fig. 24:		Trend forecasts involving mobile broadband Internet (Broadband experts)

The consumers surveyed saw a similarly positive future for mobile broadband Internet in Germany, with around half of them rating mobile broadband Internet as important or very important. Around 63 percent highlighted the practical convenience of mobile broadband Internet, particularly as a way of accessing important information at any time, wherever they happened to be.

The strong growth predicted for mobile broadband Internet uptake in Germany is shown in Fig. 25. The experts surveyed expect the number of mobile broadband Internet terminal devices to more than triple by 2015, which corresponds to average annual growth of around 15 percent. One of the factors driving this huge increase will be the increasing popularity of mobile applications.

Fig. 25:		Growth in the number of broadband-capable mobile terminal devices in Germany (Broadband economy experts)7

One of the major drivers for mobile broadband Internet is the virtually unlimited capabilities this technology offers – for example as a mobile source for every imaginable kind of content. It appears that information applications are going to predominate in the mobile broadband Internet sector (Fig. 26). The experts forecast very strong growth in the use of mobile broadband Internet applications overall, and an average of 50 percent also expected “high” or “very high” user demand through 2015 for other application segments, ranging from mobile communication to mobile commerce.

Fig. 26:		User demand for mobile broadband Internet services (Broadband economy experts)

For consumers, one of the significant issues around their use of mobile broadband Internet applications was that of costs and billing options. The experts surveyed were well aware of this, emphasizing the importance of attractive, and above all transparent, pricing models for mobile broadband Internet services (Fig. 27). They also highlighted user-friendly and reasonably-priced terminal devices as major growth drivers.

Fig. 27:		Growth drivers for mobile broadband Internet (Broadband experts)

What are the implications for mobile broadband Internet charging models? All the experts saw flat rates as the charging model of the future, and expected more and more access providers to offer their services on this basis. All other charging models were seen as unlikely to be successful.

The market trend is clear: mobile broadband Internet is forging ahead in the marketplace, and will quickly become well and truly established in Germany. The next section considers the products and specific applications we are likely to see on the mobile broadband Internet.