Europe's Mobile Services Market Faces Major Overhaul, According to GartnerGroup's Dataquest
Dataquest Analysts Say Internet Holds the Key to the Future of Operators and Mobile Vendors
Paris, France, June 8, 1999—Industry analysts at Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Group, Inc. (NYSE: IT), estimate that the booming European mobile services market will be worth $102 billion by 2003, but mobile operators need to transform themselves into integrated solution providers to survive in the next millennium as revenue per subscriber keeps falling. The analysts presented their forecast today during its annual European conference, Dataquest Predicts 99 in Paris.
Higher wireless data speeds, new devices, end users' demands for real-time access to corporate networks, and the Internet will have a major impact on the future of the European mobile services market. Call charges and subscriptions will continue to account for a major share of the operators' revenue, but the importance of wireless voice as a market driver will decrease as the Internet becomes a driving factor for the mobile market. Analysts said mobile operators will gain an increasing percentage of revenue from nonvoice services and they need to start developing IP-based networks now to remain competitive in this rapidly evolving market.
However, Dataquest analysts said the European mobile services market has a long way to go. "The majority of Europe's mobile operators are not prepared for these changes," said Dirk Bout, senior industry analyst for Dataquest's Mobile Communications Services and Infrastructure Europe program. "With the exception of a few thought leaders such as Telia in Sweden, Sonera in Finland, and BT-Cellnet in the United Kingdom, they are still struggling to manage the basic needs of coverage and capacity despite the high revenue potential for integrated services."
Voice will become only one of which many different services customers/users will take advantage. Dataquest analysts said tomorrow's higher-data speed environment will create a market for entirely new devices to handle the services created by the operators to leverage those speeds and to meet the "anytime-anywhere" needs of knowledge workers. Mobile users' growing demands for instant access to information from anywhere in the world is driving the increasing importance of the Internet, and handset vendors must be able to supply devices that meet the requirements created by high-speed data communications within 24 months. Dataquest analysts said users will have more than one wireless device with vastly different properties. Specialization is key, and vendors need to focus on devices that meet the information exchange needs of users in specific mobile data usage clusters to be successful.
E-mail will remain the top business application, and with the proliferation of ERP software, immediate access to data will become mission critical. The Internet will also play an increasing role in personal information management, enabling access to personalized Web sites, personal finances, and personal communications (such as e-mail, voice mail). Location services such as maps, traffic routing, and nearby shopping information will grow dramatically over the next few years, and content providers play an important role in this area.
Dataquest has identified the following three distinct device segments that will emerge to maximize information exchange by 2002:
Voice-Plus – Mobile phones primarily used for voice communications but with connectivity to data devices. These devices will get more sophisticated and cheaper as usage increases. This is expected to be the dominant technology until 2003.
Plus-Voice – Devices optimized for visual communication. Users can access personalized Web sites, book theater tickets, do online banking, download information from the Internet, and so on. Plus-Voice is projected to outsell Voice-Plus by the end of 2003.
Data-Plus – Machine-to-machine communication, such as communication-enabled PDAs and card phones with notebook PCs. This segment will leverage existing devices such as laptops and PDAs to deliver mobile data, with or without voice services. Data-Plus products are forecast to account for a minority of shipments by 2003.
Now in its second year, GartnerGroup's Dataquest Predicts 99 offers delegates the equivalent of eight different conferences all under one roof. The conference is built around seven themes, or "tracks," examining Internet and e-commerce, telecommunications, storage, computers and peripheral systems, IT services, enterprise software, and semiconductors. For those delegates who also wish to get a broader industry perspective, the Executive Overview will provide a plain English guide to the IT industry, where to invest for growth, as well as pinpointing all the hottest technologies.
For more press information on Dataquest Predicts 99, please contact Emma Clark at 04 03 338 169, emmac@text100.co.uk, or Sarah Wadsworth at +181 242 4238, sarahw@text100.co.uk.
To subscribe to Dataquest programs, please call 800-419-DATA or 408-468-8009. More information about Dataquest's programs, descriptions of recent research reports, and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://www.dataquest.com.
GartnerGroup's Dataquest is the recognized leader in providing the high-technology and financial communities with market intelligence for the semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, communications, document management, software, and services sectors of the global information technology industry.
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