The rural based mobile phone subscriber in developing nations has increased emphatically. There is a solid demand of mobile phones in these emerging markets.
According to mobile phone industry body, GSMA, the mobile phone industry is globally growing at the rate of one million subscriptions per day. Of these new subscribers an estimated 85% live in emerging markets.
Markets like India and China are likely to continue developing rapidly in the coming years. It is estimated that these markets will account for nearly 12% of the entire global mobile handset sales by the year 2010. Nearly 100 Million migrant workers in China rely on their mobile phones, to speak to their families settled in rural China.
In Asia/Pacific region, an increase in demand of mobile phones from emerging markets such as, India and China, and growing replacement markets, contributed to high growth in the 1st quarter of the year 2006. Total mobile handset sales resulted 64.4 Million units in this period, 36% up from the 1st quarter of 2005.
According to experts, the global mobile handset sales, reached the 224 Million units mark in the 1st quarter of 2006, a 23.8% increase from the same duration in 2005, and are expected to grow by familiar figures in 2007.
Mobile handset manufacturers are looking for new emerging markets, where people are not used to telephones, as penetration rates in European regions have already crossed 90 percent.
The number of global mobile phone subscribers is around 2.2 Billion presently. Experts expect that it will become 3 Billion by this 2007 end as the number of subscribers is increasing in China, India, Latin America and Africa. Manufacturers believe that there exists a big potential of earnings in these areas, as only 1/3 people have cell phone in such developing mobile markets.
There still exist challenges with the present infrastructure, such as putting adoption driving services in place and coming up with low cost mobile phones. But the total number of potential mobile subscribers makes emerging markets an expected source of mobile market development.
Related Market Research Reports:
Emerging Rural Mobile Market in India
Global Mobile TV Forecast to 2010
3G Market Forecast to 2010
