SMBs to Account for the Bulk of $71.5B Mobility Spending through 2019

The overall mobility spending in North America is expected to grow approximately 10 percent CAGR, with a market potential amounting to $71.5 billion in the next five years. The bulk of mobility-related spending will be driven by SMBs, according to the 2014 North America SMB Mobility Landscape, Opportunity Assessment & Outlook, a new study by AMI-Partners.

Small businesses, which make up 98 percent of the 7.6 million SMB firms in Canada and the United States, account for the estimated eight out of ten ICT dollars spent on products and services related to mobility. Two percent of SMBs are composed of midsized businesses, or firms with 100 to 999 employees, which account for the remaining 20 percent of mobility-related spending. On a per-company perspective, midsized businesses spend up to 15 times as much as small businesses, making midsized firms a likely target for mobility upselling.

“The next five years will see impressive growth in North America consumption of mobility and data plans,” said Andrew Kirk, an associate at AMI’s New York office. “The smartphone market will experience a strong increase in related spending as a result of sustained repeat and replacement purchases. As tablet usage attains mainstream status, significantly stronger growth is expected with regard to SMB installed base, volume and associated spend. We’re forecasting a 21 percent CAGR in the U.S. and Canada for tablet data plans alone.”

The recent AMI-Partners’ study shows that most business users of smartphones and tablets still gravitate toward iOS-based devices. However, Android, most especially Samsung mobile devices, is gaining headway among SMBs. Driving more business-critical applications toward the SMB sector, Microsoft is also expected to capture a share of the market with its Windows 8 mobile platform.

As the computing speeds of smartphone processors become faster, smartphones are expected to be used for tasks – the likes of credit card payment processing and GPS tracking – that call for minimal data processing and can be leveraged in a mobile setting. Similarly, the enhanced processing capabilities of new tablet models enable them to accomplish the tasks previously carried out by traditional PCs and notebooks. According to the AMI-Partners’ study, this has led to a “technology disruption” in the ICT industry. SMBs are now using tablets for real-time communications and for productivity-related tasks such as editing, sharing, and storing files.

Aside from detailing its mobility market projections through 2019, the new AMI-Partners’ study also looks into BYOD, the impact of smartphones and tablets on the SMB environment, mobile device management, and the usage of mobile applications. (KOM) Link. Link.