Subscribers of third-generation (3G) mobile telephones are expected to nearly double over the next year, growing from 45 million in 2004 to 85 million in 2005, according to the Wireless World Forum (W2F).
The
3G Trends Analysis: A Quarterly Briefing report by W2F said, 2005 is expected to be a good year for 3G mobile phones, which support much higher data content than other networks. Initially, 2004 was tipped as being the year 3G made it big but globally things didn’t go quite to plan, except for in Japan and Korea, which adopted the ‘seamless migration’ policy to 3G.
It is hoped that other countries will follow the lead of Japan and Korea, who have both experienced significant results, in particularly Japan which managed to subscribe 1 in every 6 of its population to a 3G enabled mobile telephone, compared to only 1.3% in Europe.
W2F director, Graham Brown said: “Outside of Japan and Korea the industry has few success stories to hang their hat on. But, as we have seen with mobile data, the answers to key industry issues such as ‘will 3G increase user spend’ or ‘when will 3G become commercially viable’ lie in examining the data from Asia and understanding how this can be successfully imported to other markets.”
In America, operators are being less conservative in their approach to 3G, says W2F and it they were to adopt the ‘seamless migration’ strategy they would leapfrog European 3G subscriber figures by 2007.
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