This category covers a selection of economic trends including:
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The global middle class will grow to exceed 1 billion over the next decade (with the majority of this growth in Asia) creating a new generation with access to information, content and services.
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As economic incentives put increasing pressure on developing world governments to connect the next billion Internet users, issues surrounding the affordability of broadband access and the need for further investment in infrastructure remain significant obstacles.
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Increasing levels of technological standardisation and interoperability (potentially coupled with pressure from regulators) is likely to result in long term disintegration of many vertically integrated business models which ring fence consumers into proprietary walled gardens. Opportunities will potentially arise for new proprietary cross-industry/horizontal value chains subject to the regulatory approaches of governments.
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The explosion in data traffic will require network operators to invest in upgrading their communications infrastructure at the same time as their core revenue streams and profits are being squeezed an expanding range of data hungry “over-the-top” services and applications (e.g. Skype, FaceTime…etc).
