Forecast: Mobile Broadband to be Worth $137 Billion by 2014

Newly released mobile broadband forecasts by global advisory and consulting firm Ovum indicate that users accessing the Internet via mobile broadband enabled laptops and handsets will generate revenues of $137 billion globally in 2014, more than 450 percent more than in 2008. However, operators will need to content themselves with the fact that user growth will be far faster than revenue growth, meaning more users and more data traffic, but declining ARPU.

Users of mobile broadband services (3G and 3G+ technologies) are forecast grow from 181 million in 2008 to more than 2 billion in 2014, growth of 1,024 percent, according to Ovum’s latest research. In 2014, Ovum forecasts, there will be 258 million users worldwide accessing mobile broadband services through laptops, which are connected via USB modems, datacards or have embedded mobile modules.

The most aggressive growth is expected to come from emerging markets, where the unavailability of fixed broadband offers a major opportunity to mobile broadband players.