mobile broadband user base will grow from 181 mn in 2008 to 2 bn in 2014

Mobile Broadband has a huge potential in India and is likely to emerge as one of the drivers of the telecom industry in the time to come.

A recent report on mobile broadband forecast by global advisory and consulting firm Ovum says that countries like India and China with a huge population of mobile users will play the most aggressive role in growth of mobile broadband in the world.While the sector is not one of the happening segments in the country now,it is likely to change in the coming two-to-three years.The much-anticipated launch of 3G services is likely to fuel this market.

Around one-fourth of India's mobile phone users have internet capable phones. Besides,the growth is likely to come from the segments where fixed broadband is not easily available. "Some 40% of total mobile broadband laptop users will come from the APAC region in 2014," says the report. The advent of 3G in India clubbed with the poor fixed line penetration will mean that many users will access internet for the first time on a handset. Apart from that, the mobile operators would like to push mobile broadband and other data services in an effort to increase ARPU. India boasts of one of the lowest ARPUs in the world.

Users of mobile broadband services (3G and 3G+ technologies) will grow from 181 mn in 2008 to over 2 bn in 2014, growth of 1024%, according to Ovum's latest research. In 2014 Ovum forecasts that there will be 258 mn users globally accessing mobile broadband services through laptops connected via USB modems, data cards or those that have embedded mobile modules.

The findings of Ovum are echoed by a report by Informa Telecoms & Media's World Cellular Data Metrics report. The report points out that there were more than 225mn mobile broadband subscribers (all technologies) at the end of March 2009, representing 93% year-on-year growth. Mobile broadband services continue to be an important source of growth for mobile operators, both as a revenue generator and as a way of retaining customers in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

It said broadband penetration in 20 countries grew by 10% or more in the first quarter from the previous three months, with the biggest rise of 13.4% coming from India.

However, since most of the users are low spending consumers in India,it remains to be seen whether mobile broadband will help the operators in increasing the ARPU. Besides the under penetration of broadband in India still remains one of the biggest challenge.