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Mobility Solutions Revenue will Reach $1.8 Trillion in 2022

Advances in both the consumer and business technology sectors have driven the adoption of mobile internet access and associated service delivery.  Applications of mobile devices -- by customers, business partners, or employees -- delivers unprecedented access to information, improved collaboration, and increased productivity.

Worldwide investment in mobility solutions is forecast to reach $1.8 trillion in 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). While annual growth will vary somewhat, IDC expects the overall five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will be 2.8 percent.

Furthermore, mobility spending is already on track to reach $1.63 trillion in 2018.

Mobility Solutions Market Development

Consumers will likely provide more than 70 percent of worldwide mobility spending, with slightly more than half of this amount spent on mobile connectivity services and most of the remainder going toward new devices, such as smartphones. Growth in the consumer mobile telecom sector will experience a five-year CAGR of 2.2 percent.

From a business use perspective, the professional services industry is forecast be the leader for mobility spending in 2018 at $44.9 billion, followed closely by the banking industry at $44.5 billion. Discrete manufacturing, retail, and education will round out the top 5 industries this year.

More than half of business mobility spending -- and nearly three quarters for the professional services industry -- will go to connectivity and enterprise mobility services. While mobile devices will be the second largest area of spending, most industries will also make considerable investments in mobile application development platforms.

The industries that will see the fastest growth in mobility solutions spending are discrete manufacturing and utilities (each with a 5.9 percent CAGR), telecommunications (5.8 percent CAGR), and process manufacturing (5.7 percent CAGR). Healthcare, with a 5 percent CAGR, is forecast to move ahead of the education sector by 2022.

"While the overall mobility market matures, with less device and platform differentiation, the use cases for mobile devices and apps in the enterprise continue to expand," said Phil Hochmuth, program director at IDC. "Business is moving beyond using mobile devices for basic communications and productivity applications to more advanced, task- and industry-specific apps and workloads."

From a technology perspective, mobility services will be the largest area of spending throughout the 2017-2022 forecast period, surpassing $1 trillion in 2021. Hardware will be the second largest technology category with spending forecast to reach $738 billion in 2022.

Despite being the smallest technology category, software spending will experience a 12.9 percent CAGR over the five-year forecast. Mobile enterprise applications will be the largest category of mobile software spending, growing to nearly $8 billion in 2022.

Businesses will also increase their efforts with mobile application development platforms, with a five-year CAGR forecast of 15.1 percent, making it the fastest growing technology category overall. In fact, all four software categories -- including mobile enterprise security and enterprise mobility management -- are forecast to deliver double-digit five-year CAGRs.

Outlook for Mobility Applications Investment

The United States and China will be the two largest geographic markets, with each seeing more than $300 billion in mobility spending in 2018. Japan will be the third largest country for mobility spending at nearly $107 billion, followed by India and Brazil at $51 billion and $44 billion, respectively.

India will see the fastest growth in mobility spending with a five-year CAGR of 7.9 percent. Venezuela and the Philippines will also have CAGRs greater than 7 percent while three countries -- Israel, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia -- are forecast to experience a decline in mobility spending over the next five years.

Moreover, large and very large businesses combined will account for nearly $197 billion in mobility spending in 2018, growing to more than $245 billion in 2022. The small business sector will grow to more than $100 billion in 2022 while medium-size businesses will surpass $94 billion in 2022. The small office market will spend more than $70 billion on mobility solutions in 2022.

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