Mobile industries generated some $3.3 trillion in sales and were responsible for 11 million new jobs worldwide in 2014, according to a new Boston Consulting Group study.

DH Kass, Senior Contributing Blogger

January 21, 2015

2 Min Read
Study: Mobile Created 11 Million Jobs, $3.3 Trillion in Global Sales, in 2014

For sure, cloud, data analytics and security are hot target technologies. But mobile–perhaps enterprise mobility–may be the hottest hot zone of them all.

Mobile is everywhere, so much so that associated industries generated some $3.3 trillion in sales and were responsible for 11 million new jobs worldwide in 2014, according to a new Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study commissioned by Qualcomm (QCOM).

“Globally, mobile technology has emerged as a primary engine of economic growth, stimulating enormous private-sector spending in both R&D and infrastructure, and profoundly changing daily lives—everywhere,” BCG wrote in a report entitled The Mobile Revolution: How Mobile Technologies Drive a Trillion-Dollar Impact.

“Dramatic performance improvements in mobile communications standards have propelled mobile to become the fastest adopted technology of all time,” BCG said.

Who are the primary beneficiaries of the mobile boom? Exactly who you might think–heavyweights Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), China Mobile, Alibaba, Facebook (FB) and Verizon (VZ), among the most valuable companies in the world and those leading the pack in making money from mobile.

BCG conducted its research in six countries–Brazil, China, Germany, India, South Korea and the U.S. Here’s a sampling of what it uncovered:

  • The mobile value chain generated almost $3.3 trillion in revenue globally in 2014 and is directly responsible for 11 million jobs.

  • Mobile network infrastructure costs have also fallen 95 percent from 2G to 3G and 67 percent from 3G to 4G.

  • Some 90 percent of 3G and 4G consumers want faster data speeds, more coverage, more battery life, and other upgrades.

  • Global data usage is doubling annually to where data traffic is expected to be 1,000 times greater inside of 10 years.

  • Mobile contributes more than $1.2 trillion in GDP in the six countries surveyed, or as much as 4 percent of each country’s GDP, and 11 percent of South Korea’s. And, mobile’s share of GDP is growing at a 10 to 20 percent annual clip.

  • Companies focused on core mobile technology invest about 21 percent of revenue in R&D, more than any other industry except biotechnology. By 2020, it will take $4 trillion in R&D and capital expenditures to maximize 5G networks.

  • Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adopting advanced mobile technologies grow faster than their non-mobile counterparts, with the 25 percent that use mobile services seeing sales growth up to two times faster and job creation up to eight times faster than other companies.

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About the Author(s)

DH Kass

Senior Contributing Blogger, The VAR Guy

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