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Mobile adds $1 trillion to Asia-Pacific economy

The APAC region currently has half of the world’s mobile connections

SHANGHAI – The Asia-Pacific mobile industry contributes more than $1 trillion per year to the area economy, mainly due to the increasing penetration of mobile broadband and smartphones, according to a GSMA report.

The report states that the mobile industry contributed $1.1 trillion to the Asia-Pacific economy in 2014, which represented 4.7% of the region’s gross domestic product, with more than one-quarter of this economic contribution generated directly by local mobile operators.

The study also revealed that Asia-Pacific currently represents half of the world’s unique mobile subscribers and mobile connections and will continue to grow at a faster pace than the global average over the next five years, adding 600 million new unique subscribers by 2020.

“The Asia-Pacific region features some of the world’s most advanced mobile markets, as well as fast-growing emerging markets that are using mobile as a platform to deliver essential services such as education, healthcare and banking,” GSMA Director Anne Bouverot said during a presentation at the Mobile World Congress Shanghai.

At the end of the first quarter of 2015, there were 1.8 billion unique mobile subscribers in Asia-Pacific, representing 45% of the region’s population. China, India, Indonesia and Japan account for more than three-quarters of the region’s subscriber base. Total mobile connections in Asia-Pacific stood at 3.7 billion at the end of Q1 2015.

“This figure represents 50% of global connections. The region is growing faster compared to the other regions,” Bouverot said. Next-generation technology accounted for 9% of connections, a figure expected to reach one-third of the total by 2020.

The GSMA report also reveals that smartphones now represent 40% of connections in the Asia-Pacific region and are set to account for two-thirds of the total by the end of 2020. Bouverot also said that South Korea is the most advanced market in Asia-Pacific in terms of smartphone penetration.

“In terms of LTE penetration, Japan and South Korea are the most developed markets globally. However, in terms of growth, China is leading the way,” the executive said.

 

ABOUT AUTHOR

Juan Pedro Tomás
Juan Pedro Tomás
Juan Pedro covers Global Carriers and Global Enterprise IoT. Prior to RCR, Juan Pedro worked for Business News Americas, covering telecoms and IT news in the Latin American markets. He also worked for Telecompaper as their Regional Editor for Latin America and Asia/Pacific. Juan Pedro has also contributed to Latin Trade magazine as the publication's correspondent in Argentina and with political risk consultancy firm Exclusive Analysis, writing reports and providing political and economic information from certain Latin American markets. He has a degree in International Relations and a master in Journalism and is married with two kids.