The future of mobile

What is the future of mobile? To put it into perspective, almost half the world’s population are mobile subscribers, but I believe we are still only at the beginning of mobile innovation.

Look at how apps have evolved from simple ringtones through to games and social networking, and now to banking and commerce. The pace of change is tremendous.

Increased smartphone penetration means more opportunities to deliver new apps and services, as well as huge growth in data demand. Smartphone adoption in emerging markets alone is showing double-digit growth and giving new users access to the mobile internet.

The entire mobile ecosystem is growing and people, businesses and communities will be able to use mobile technology to improve both our personal and professional lives.

4G technology and lower handset costs are making the billions of connected devices even more accessible, with the ability to deliver high performance applications. This presents a great promise of an interconnected world which should allow new innovation to happen even more rapidly.

But is the mobile ecosystem a truly global one?  Perhaps not quite yet, but I think there is a great opportunity and growing willingness for cross-ecosystem collaboration in order for us to achieve a global mobile community.

I see mobile as a young industry that is reaching its most exciting phase of development. We’re still exploring the potential of mobile technology to transform how we live our lives. There are still challenges to overcome but we really are on the verge of mobile moving from voice minutes and data plans to being limitless in its scope.

In this blog post, I’ve taken a look at how mobile usage is evolving – from ringtones to the early stages of the Internet of Things. Next time I’ll discuss what the future of mobile innovation will look like. Stay tuned.

Watch a video on the future of mobile below: