14 DAY TRIAL // According to an update to ABI Research's mobile business vertical markets database, the North American mobile-business customer base decreased by 2.9 percent in 2009. One of the main factors that led to this decrease was the unemployment that had increased drastically in the last period, causing many business customers to shift to the consumer category.
This decrease appeared despite the fact that the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for business customers gained 2,5 percent in 2009. “The bad economy accelerated greater use of mobile services by business customers, particularly use of mobile data services. Mobile services increase productivity across all occupations, with field force workers finding the greatest benefit. Assuming the recovery continues, mobile will see even bigger gains in 2010 for both subscribers and ARPUs,” Practice Director Dan Shey said.
The most affected sector was manufacturing, losing more mobile-business customers than any other one in 2009. The added jobs in the healthcare sector managed to keep the numbers of mobile-business customers at the same level throughout 2009. The largest ARPU growth, according to forecasts, will be recorded in real estate, and in technical and scientific services. These are the two main industries that are increasing the use of mobile services, mainly data services.
According to the research firm, the segmentation of the mobile-business market can be divided into two main levels. For the first one, research companies provide five-year forecasts for mobile services in the U.S. Private/Public sector, U.S. Self Employed and Canada, while, on the second level, the U.S. Private/Public sector is divided for four sizes of businesses, 20 different occupations and 22 industry verticals.
The North American Business Mobility Vertical Market Analysis from ABI Research can be found on the research firm's website, here. This analysis provides detailed information on all the mobile services and applications used on a daily basis by mobile-business customers. Different forecasts are conducted for each of the mobile services: messaging, voice, mobile broadband, information access, application downloads and mobile cloud computing services. These are measured according to penetration, revenues, ARPU and customers.