India passing China as top mobile growth market

India is set to overtake China as the most significant mobile growth market worldwide, and Asia is becoming the growth engine of the entire mobile ecosystem, according to the GSMA.

In a new report, the GSMA predicts that over one billion additional people worldwide will be connected to mobile networks by 2020.

Around a third of these new users (337 million) will come from India, compared to more than 200 million from China.

China and India, combined with Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, will meanwhile collectively account for around 60% of the world’s expected 1.1 billion new subscribers by the end of the decade.

The report also shows that 46% of the global population is using mobile phones to access the internet, and that this is expected to increase to 60% by 2020. This will make mobile phone ownership the key factor driving global internet penetration.

Smartphones may also have grown to become the most commonly owned consumer electronics device, with penetration above 80% in some Asian markets including Korea and Singapore. By contrast, smartphone adoption rates in India stand at only 25%, leaving plenty of room for growth.

Revenue from mobile services worldwide is meanwhile projected to grow by around 2% annually through to 2020, with slowing revenue growth being compensated for with new revenue opportunities resulting from growing mobile internet adoption and the move to higher-speed networks.