Mobile email set to explode

Mobile email will show rapid growth over the next five years

Mobile email is on the verge of mass adoption, according to industry analysts Datamonitor.

A new report from the company claims that there are roughly 650 million corporate email inboxes worldwide today, at least 35 per cent of which could be mobilised.

Datamonitor estimates the global addressable market for enterprise mobile email at around 260 million subscriptions, while global mobile operator revenues from mobile email and personal information management are expected to surpass $600m by 2009, over three times those of 2005.

The market is set to show rapid growth over the next five years, and provide significant opportunities for mobile operators and mobile infrastructure providers.

Push email technology is relatively mature, and mobile operators are fully backing the deployment of mobile email solutions.

"Mobile operators have every interest in rolling out mobile email solutions to their networks, and see it as an indispensable element in their competitive strategy," said Datamonitor analyst Alaa Owaineh.

"It will allow them to use excess bandwidth on their networks, especially after their 2.5G/3G network upgrades, reduce subscriber churn, and become a major source of revenue further down the line."

Mobile email infrastructure providers' revenues will continue to grow, albeit at a much slower rate than operators' revenues due to operators' increasing dominance in the value chain.

Despite its slower growth, Datamonitor's outlook for this segment of the market remains positive.

"Mobile email is on the verge of mass market adoption, and the number of mobilised email accounts will explode over the next three years," said Owaineh.

"As differentiation becomes more difficult, pricing and partnerships will become key factors in achieving growth."