Phone manufacturers put the eye on emerging markets

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Phone manufacturers put the eye on emerging markets
By: Florencia Bunge
The last week in Barcelona, Spain, took place the annual Mobile World Congress
(MWC14), a conference about the imaginary world of mobile communication. This
congress is the most important of the industry about global technology and I+D
platforms, the event promotes the international collaboration in mobile wireless
communications.
A figure that shows the significance of the conference this year was attended by more
than 85,000 visitors from 201 countries, setting a record for the main event of the
mobile industry, in which more than 1,800 exhibiting companies talked about the latest
news and services over 98,000 square meters of exhibition. More than 3,800
international media and industry analysts gave a continuous coverage.
Although it seems a simple trade forum, the truth is that large mobile operators and
manufacturers discuss about market trends. This year, because the developed
economies are in a period of slowdown the manufacturers announced that they are
turning to emerging countries where there is a real need for mobile internet because of
the weakness of fixed networks.
According to the trends noted in this global summit, the next five years the emerging
countries will exceed the number of smartphones developed and IP traffic will be
multiplied sevenfold in Latin America, with the world's highest average annual growth
rate.
Therefore, it is a fact state that the mobile phone market is facing its first major
transformation. Currently about two-thirds of the world population is not connected to
the Internet, and it is expected that the largest increase in sales of smartphones are
going to be in the emerging countries and the Third World: China, India and Africa, as
their interests are in phone intelligent low cost.
Now the industry has eyes on new markets, as well as announced at the fair in
Barcelona. Now, emerging markets should be able to seize this international interest to
positively impact their economies, because as the president of Google, Eric Schmidt,
said “the technology will be part of our daily lives , and be there without us noticing ,
as electricity.”
This article has been based on Florencia Bunge personal opinion.