Digital Lifescapes

In the span of just two decades, mobile money offerings have transformed from a simple money transfer mechanism into a comprehensive financial ecosystem serving billions of under-served people worldwide. What began as an experiment in leveraging mobile phones for basic transactions has evolved into sophisticated financial super-apps that rival traditional banking infrastructure. This transformation represents a fintech innovation, and a fundamental re-imagining of how financial services can reach those left behind by conventional banking systems. Mobile Money Market Development According to the Juniper Research latest market study, more than 1.6 billion adults globally remained without access to a bank account in 2025. The distribution of this un-banked population reveals stark regional disparities: Africa and the Middle East account for 691 million un-banked adults, while the Indian Subcontinent contributes 497 million. In regions like Africa and the Middle East, over half of the adul...

Credit scoring is a method that lenders use to predict the probability a borrower or counter-party will default on loans, or incur additional charges for repayment -- also known as measuring credit worthiness. The method is a key tool in making credit affordable for individuals and businesses. It links credit products to risk potential, connecting borrowers to secondary capital markets and increasing the amount of funds available. This securing process establishes risk predictability dependent on a number of factors, determined by financial indicators and other publicly available information reported by the credit bureaus. Credit Score Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, they now forecast credit scoring services will grow by 67 percent to $44 billion by 2028. Juniper anticipates that emerging markets will experience the greatest growth -- projecting the African & Middle Eastern region to grow by 117 percent over the forecast period...

Information technology (IT) investment within the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region is on track to further growth.  IT spending in EMEA is forecast to reach $1 trillion in 2018 -- that's an increase of 4.9 percent from 2017, according to the latest market study by by Gartner. In 2017, however, all categories of traditional IT spending in EMEA under-performed the global averages. According to the Gartner assessment, currency effects played a significant part in the weakness during 2017, and will also contribute to the forecast shortfall in 2018. EMEA IT Sector Market Development "The UK has EMEA’s largest IT market and its decline of 3.1 percent in 2017 impacts the forecast heavily," said John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner . "Weak Sterling and political uncertainty since Brexit are reducing UK IT spending in 2017, while other major IT markets in EMEA grew steadily." Another significant currency effect is the rapid appreciat...

Smartphones and media tablets are proven business technology tools within most work situations today. Mobile enterprise communication continues to grow across the globe, as more organizations make mobility software apps an essential component of their digital transformation agenda. The global mobile workforce is forecast to increase from 1.45 billion in 2016 -- accounting for 38.8 percent of the overall workforce -- to 1.87 billion in 2022, thereby accounting for 42.5 percent of the workforce. Mobile Internet Market Development Trends Globalization and continued advancements in mobile internet technology and applications will increase levels of mobility among executives, consultants, sales professionals, and many other professions, according to the latest worldwide market study by Strategy Analytics. "In overall terms, the traditional workforce in the United States and Canada have been aging, along with the world's population in general," said Gina Luk, senior ana...

Hyperscale public cloud services offer agility, scalability and significant cost benefits that are difficult to achieve in traditional enterprise data centers. These services will serve a strategic role as the foundation for the digital business transformation of the future. At the end of the third quarter of last year, Gartner is predicting a 13.5 percent growth in public cloud services for 2015. This growth is forecast to peak in 2016 and will likely stay constant through 2019, although the actual spend should increase through to 2019. The public cloud computing market is maturing, across the globe. Public cloud services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is forecast to grow by 19.3 percent in 2016 to reach a total of $880 million -- that's up from an estimated $737 million in 2015, according to the latest market study by Gartner. Public Cloud Service Market Development Moreover, Business Process as a Service (BPaaS), the largest segment of the cloud servic...

The impact of alternative forms of video entertainment on the traditional pay-TV sector is now very much a global phenomena. What started as a small disruption in North America, with the introduction of Netflix and Hulu service offerings, has evolved into a transformation that reaches far and wide. Over-the-Top (OTT) television and video revenues within the Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) region, which includes nineteen countries, will reach $2.63 billion in 2020 -- that's up from only $52 million recorded in 2010, and the $616 million expected in 2015. According to the latest market study by Digital TV Research, from the $2.21 billion in revenues to be added between 2014 and 2020, Russia is forecast to contribute $795 million, with Turkey bringing in a further $219 million. Russia will remain the largest revenue earner in the region, by a wide margin. "OTT in Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa will still be an immature sector by 2020, although thi...

The mobile internet is like a pathway to progress in the emerging markets. But only three regions of the world -- Latin America, Middle East, and Africa -- will experience mobile internet service revenue with double-digit growth between 2013 and 2018. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, this significant new growth is underpinned by the strong per subscription data consumption increasing at CAGRs of 45-49 percent. In other words, data traffic doubles in less than every two years on average, thanks to the increased availability of affordable smart devices in the near future. In 2018, Latin America and Middle East are expected to see an average user contributing more than 2.5 Gigabytes of traffic per month. Low literacy rate has resulted in the low messaging volume in Africa. However, with the fastest mobile subscription growth and over-the-top applications being less prevalent, it will be the only region to enjoy consistent positive messaging service revenue gro...

What can the rest of the developed world learn from mobile network service providers in the emerging markets? Do the savvy marketers in these emerging nations have a better understanding of effective market development strategy? ​India currently offers the lowest priced mobile services plan that includes internet access, according to the latest global market study by ABI Research. "India’s lowest priced mobile data plans decreased 29.4 percent year-on-year (YoY) compared to Q4-2011, when it ranked fourth," said Marina Lu, research associate at ABI Research . According to the findings from ABI's survey, in stark contrast to India, UAE currently has the most expensive mobile internet pricing plan at $67.8 for 5GB. There is considerable fluidity in mobile data tariffs -- just one year ago, Singapore had the least expensive mobile internet tariffs, but it has since reduced its data caps while keeping the tariff pricing the same. Comparing mobile internet pricing bet...

As 2012 comes to a close, marketers can reflect upon the results of their significant ongoing advertising spend. Most will maintain the status quo by sinking the vast majority of their budget into advertising. That's good news for the troubled legacy media industry. Despite the global economic slowdowns, the media advertising sector is expected to continue growing for the next several years -- driven especially by increased spending within the emerging markets around the globe. eMarketer estimates that total media advertising spend worldwide has risen by 5.4 percent in 2012 -- to just under $519 billion -- that's compared to the 2011 increase of just 3.6 percent. Spending on adverting will continue to climb at a similar pace throughout eMarketer’s forecast period, which extends through 2016. By that year, eMarketer now forecasts that worldwide media ad spending will top $628 billion. The fastest growth will come from Latin America, where ad spending was already up b...

The number of mobile phone users worldwide will continue to grow through 2016, and smartphone users, in particular, are on the rise. This year, there will be 950 million smartphone users around the world, reaching 1.94 billion by 2015. In the developing nations of the world, a mobile device may be the first and only way that many of their consumers will access the internet. As people prosper and move upward in the local economy, their expectations and related product or service needs evolve. According to the latest market study by eMarketer , business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) -- including sales of travel, digital downloads and event tickets -- are growing much faster than in any other region in the world by a margin of nearly 10 percentage points. But the growth in this region is somewhat limited by a very low base of online spending. eMarketer estimates online buyers in the region will spend $20.61 billion this year, making MEA the...

According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation ( IDC ), the market for ereaders in the EMEA region more than doubled in 2011 compared to the previous year, reaching total shipments of nearly 4.8 million units. There's growing mainstream adoption of these devices, which is creating the potential for incremental digital multimedia revenue. Although EMEA still accounts for just over 17 percent of the worldwide market, IDC forecasts sales in this region to exceed 24 million units by 2016, generating a 37 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the forecast period. The fall in prices greatly contributed to the sales momentum in 2011. The average price for ereaders continued to slide as Amazon aggressively brought the price of its WiFi Kindle device down to €99 in eurozone countries. In 2011, the company experienced strong acceleration in sales thanks to the the rapid uptake of Amazon Kindle devices in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. In these coun...

Emerging markets will be the key driver in the growth of global mobile value-added service (VAS) revenues from $200 billion in 2009 to $340 billion in 2014, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media . China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Russia, Poland and the Ukraine are expected to account for 36 percent of the global mobile data revenues in 2014. “Compared to the developed world, there are very different economic, social, demographic and cultural challenges in the emerging markets. In many countries, 3G services are still not available, or are limited to mobile subscribers in larger cities," according to Shailendra Pandey, senior analyst at Informa. Therefore, operators have to depend on 2G services such as SMS, USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems, to be able to drive mass market adoption of their mobile VAS, and to ...

In the last twenty years, few industries have grown as fast as the worldwide market for mobile phone services. Having recorded a staggering 3.9 billion subscriber additions between 2000 and 2009 -- a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.3 percent -- the worldwide mobile subscriber base is forecast to increase from 4.6 billion in 2009 to 7.5 billion by 2020, according to the latest market study by Portio Research . This subscriber growth has propelled worldwide mobile penetration from 11.5 percent in 2000 to pass 64 percent by 2009 -- and by 2020 it is forecast reach 94 percent. Up until 2000, Europe dominated the worldwide mobile market -- in terms of subscriber numbers -- but shortly thereafter Asia Pacific replaced Europe as the world leader and has continued to remain so in terms of subscriber base. However, now Africa and Middle East are adding mobile phone subscribers to the worldwide base much faster than any other region. Since their 1992 launch, mobile value added...

Where's the primary opportunity of new consumer demand for broadband services? According to the latest market study by Informa , global fixed-broadband subscription numbers will reach half a billion this year, driven by continued growth in the emerging markets. Although the fixed-broadband markets of many developed countries are saturated, tens of millions of homes in China and India are still without broadband. These under-served markets are poised to drive yet another wave of broadband growth -- creating opportunities for service providers and equipment vendors. "Overall the number of net new fixed-broadband subscriptions grew in 2009 to over 480 million, largely as a result of accelerating growth in emerging markets and we expect this number to reach 500 million this year. China, Russia, Mexico, India and Vietnam were among the countries that recorded the greatest leaps in fixed-broadband subscription numbers last year," said Rob Gallagher, Principal Analyst at Informa...

Following a slow down which started in the final quarter of 2008, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) PC shipments fell to negative trends in the first quarter of 2009 as anticipated. In line with forecasts, the PC market in EMEA displayed its first yearly decline since the 2001 recession, with sales recording –10 percent year-on-year growth in 1Q09, according to data released by IDC. The CEE region remained the most affected bringing down overall EMEA results with a decline in PC shipments of –41 percent, while MEA slowed down as well at –6.1 percent growth. Western Europe held well, however, with shipments decreasing by only –0.5 percent, supported by sustained consumer demand and continued traction for Mini Notebooks. The business market is directly impacted by lower investment levels and consumer spending also slowed down since January, but the traction for Mini Notebooks helped to sustain consumer demand in Western Europe and contain overall market contraction, and will continue...

As the economic crisis continues to evolve, demand for personal computers is expected to slow quickly. IDC expects worldwide PC shipments to grow just 3.8 percent in 2009 with shipment value falling by 5.3 percent. This is considerably slower than second quarter projections of 13.7 percent growth in units and 4.5 percent in shipment value. The outlook for full year 2008 and 2010 have each been lowered a couple percent to 12.4 percent and 10.9 percent, respectively, with growth above 12 percent for 2011 and 2012. Emerging markets in Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa are among the most significantly affected in the short term. Falling commodity prices, a rising dollar, and restricted credit have had a dramatic affect on consumer and distribution channel financing. These regions had been among the fastest growing markets over the past several years as falling prices helped new users acquire systems. Now Latin America and Central/Eastern Europe are expecting volume ...

The managed network services market is forecast to grow to over $34 billion by 2013, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media. The developing regions such as the Middle East and Africa are expanding particularly strongly as new services are launched, while the established markets such as Western Europe are driven by the need to differentiate through marketing support and customer service. According to the Informa report author, Richard Jesty, one major trend which is currently emerging is the willingness of operators of all sizes to consider using managed services. He said "The future for managed services is vibrant, with new strategic deals now being struck with Tier 1 operators, and consultancy becoming a significant factor. But what makes this trend so exciting are the implications it has for the changing nature of the telecoms operator's business model and the opportunities this creates for service providers." External services already repr...

India remains the biggest single hope for revenue and global influence for WiMAX, according to the latest market study by Infonetics Research. Their assessment focuses on targeted regions and countries around the world that have strong potential for fixed and mobile WiMAX markets, either because they have huge populations, or the broadband demands of the population are not being met by existing technologies. After India, Infonetics expects Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Brazil to lead in WiMAX uptake, with the number of WiMAX subscribers in each of these developing regions roughly doubling to tripling each year through at least 2011. Sales of fixed and mobile WiMAX network equipment, such as ASN gateways, base stations, CPE, and NICs are likewise forecast to skyrocket in these regions. WiMAX has gained such momentum across so many regions that it is no longer sensible to suggest that WiMAX growth will be flattened by the emergence of LTE in the next few yea...

Infonetics Research reports that worldwide revenue from hosted VoIP and managed IP PBX services jumped 52 percent to $24 billion in 2007 after surging 66 percent in 2006, and is expected to grow in the strong double-digits through at least 2011. The Infonetics market study uncovered that hosted VoIP services continue to outpace managed IP PBX services by far, with residential services fueling market growth. While VoIP services are being embraced by consumers worldwide, businesses have been comparatively slower in their adoption due to various roadblocks. This is about to change, as technical issues are resolved. For example, many PBX manufacturers have already added SIP trunking interfaces to their equipment, and more recently, they've greatly expanded the list of certified service providers, and that's going to fuel the growth in SIP trunking services. These kinds of developments will boost the overall VoIP business services segment for years to come. Highlights of the Infonet...

ComScore released a study of worldwide usage of social networking sites, indicating that while the growth in new users in North America is beginning to level off, it is burgeoning in other regions around the world. During the past year, the total North American audience of social networkers has grown 9 percent compared to a much larger 25 percent growth for the world at large. The Middle East-Africa region (up 66 percent), Europe (up 35 percent), and Latin America (up 33 percent) have each grown at well-above average rates. During the past year, many of the top social networking sites have demonstrated rapid growth in their global user bases. Facebook.com, which took over the global lead among social networking sites in April 2008, has made a concerted effort to become more culturally relevant in markets outside the U.S. Its introduction of natural language interfaces in several markets has helped propel the site to 153 percent growth during the past year. Meanwhile, the emphasis Hi5.c...