A Major Catalyst for Change

The internet is a major catalyst for change across a broad array of industries. Transforming industry sectors, business models and consumer behaviour. Mobility, Cloud Computing, Business Intelligence, and Social Media underpin, this shift taking place in both the developed and developing world.

The investment in network infrastructure, around the world, laid the foundation. For the delivery of data services, faster download speeds, and a fall in data costs. The wide adoption of smartphones, and changing consumer behaviour, intensified the transition to a data-driven economy.

Which in turn is driving the acquisitive behaviour of original equipment manufacturers (OEM), like SAP, HP, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM.

Many (OEM’s), embarked on an acquisition programme, to tilt their portfolios towards  areas of growth; in digital commerce, enterprise cloud, data-driven business applications, artificial intelligence (AI), data centers, application programming interface technologies, big data and the internet of things (IOT).

This in part provides some evidence of the continued ascent of a mobile data-driven economy. In terms of internet penetration, there are 3.58 billion people around the world using the internet.

That’s about 48% of the worlds’ population according to GSMA. 

Mobile broadband is a prerequisite for getting more people online. However, 4.5 billion people primarily located within the emerging markets, are still disconnected from the internet according to the world economic forum.

Due to the fact, that a significant proportion of consumers, in the emerging markets reside in areas with a 2G or a 3G mobile signal.

It's virtually impossible to access the internet effectively via a 2G network. Some 73% of the worlds’ population, lives within a 3G signal and only 43% of people have access to a 4G signal.

1.25 billion are unconnected and live in areas without 3G or 4G mobile coverage. These groups of individuals are located in low income, areas with weak or non-existent enabling infrastructures. 

The remaining locations without 3G or 4G, are in geographically isolated regions. Where it is very difficult and expensive for mobile operators to  roll out networks  and generate a satisfactory return on investment (ROI).