VENTURES AFRICA – Over the course of the past four days, the 2015 Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry, has been on in Barcelona, revealing the latest device designs and trends sweeping across the industry. During the opening day of the event, Hans Vestberg, Ericsson’s Chief Executive, disclosed four major industry trends that will define the year 2015.
“We predict four key changes during 2015: more people will watch streamed, on-demand video than broadcast TV on a weekly basis; video will generate half of the mobile data traffic; LTE subscriber growth will exceed 80 percent; and world mobile broadband coverage will be above 70 percent. These all are massive forces of change and will open up new opportunities both in the ICT industry and in other industries,” Mr Vestberg said.
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“There is a new logic being applied across industries,” he continued. “We can see a definite shift from physical products to digital services. New business models are emerging, along with new ways of solving old problems that create new efficiencies. True customer intimacy can be created using digital tools. All in all, you can see that ICT drives transformation that is really changing the game.”
The latests
This year’s conference hosts over 2,000 companies who are on the ground to show off their latest innovations to about 90,000 visitors. Some of the striking innovations include the next big thing in phone biometrics – iris recognition, which enables the unlocking of a phone by just looking at it. It also offered the opportunity to showcase the furniture that charges mobile phones, and a watch that can call parents if their child gets into trouble.
“We now have 2.9 billion mobile broadband subscribers globally, basically the last billion in less than 12 months. The first billion took over 5 years to be signed. But what are people using mobile broadband to do? Our ConsumerLab research indicates that most of these subscribers – in the 16 to 45-year age bracket – are using their devices to stream and watch videos instead of watching tradional TV,” Vestberg stated, justifying his earlier submission with facts and figures that spoke to the matter.
ICT… the Cloud effect
A talk about trends in the tech industry would be grossly incomplete without mentioning the cloud revolution that continues to disrupt operating models in multiple industries including the oil and gas playing field. According to cloud automation vendor Rightscale, the cloud is now widely regarded was the default way to run applications. 93 percent of over 300 enterprises, with more than 1,000 employees surveyed by Rightscale run applications from or experiment with infrastructure-as-a-service while 82 percent have a hybrid cloud strategy, up from 74 percent in 2014.
Ericsson also announced an upgrade to its Cloud System in line with realizing a digital industrialization strategy. Also, its Connected Traffic Cloud solution goes beyond connecting cars to connecting the entire traffic system in order to improve road safety and traffic management. Specifically, it facilitates the sharing of real-time data on traffic and road conditions between connected vehicles and the authorities.
Expecting 5G?
Peeking into the future, Vestberg briefly discussed the upcoming 5G technology. “5G is not here but we know things are happening in 5G. Our test beds are now showing 5 Gigabits per second, the requirements are pretty well defined and we’re working according to them, hundred times quicker speeds, much lower latency, much better power consumption or battery consumption and also enabling a lot of devices,” he concluded.
