Spending on Mobility Solutions Will Reach $1.8 Trillion in 2022

Worldwide spending on mobility solutions is forecast to reach $1.8 trillion in 2022, according to IDC. While annual growth will vary somewhat over the 2017-2022 forecast period, IDC expects the five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will be 2.8%. Mobility spending in 2018 is forecast to be $1.63 trillion.

Consumers will provide more than 70% of worldwide mobility spending throughout the forecast with slightly more than half of this amount going toward mobile connectivity services and most of the remainder going toward devices, mainly smartphones. Growth in the consumer sector will be variable but positive with a five-year CAGR of 2.2%.

Professional services industry is forecast be the worldwide industry leader for mobility spending in 2018 at $44.9 billion, followed closely by the banking industry at $44.5 billion. Discrete manufacturing, retail, and education will round out the top 5 industries this year. Like the consumer sector, more than half of industry mobility spending (and nearly three quarters for the professional services industry) will go to connectivity services and enterprise mobility services.

While mobile devices will be the second largest area of spending, most industries will also make considerable investments in mobile applications and mobile application development platforms. The industries that will see the fastest growth in mobility spending over the forecast period are discrete manufacturing and utilities (each with a 5.9% CAGR), telecommunications (5.8% CAGR), and process manufacturing (5.7% CAGR). Healthcare, with a 5.0% CAGR, is forecast to move ahead of education to become the fifth largest industry by 2022.

From a technology perspective, mobility services will be the largest area of spending throughout the 2017-2022 forecast, surpassing $1 trillion in 2021. Hardware will be the second largest technology category with spending forecast to reach $738 billion in 2022. Despite being the smallest technology category, software will see strong spending growth (12.9% CAGR) over the five-year forecast. Mobile enterprise applications will be the largest category of mobile software spending, growing to nearly $8.0 billion in 2022.

The United States and China will be the two largest geographic markets for mobility spending throughout the forecast with each seeing more than $300 billion in mobility spending this year. Japan will be the third largest country for mobility spending in 2018 at nearly $107 billion, followed by India and Brazil at $51 billion and $44 billion, respectively. India will see the fastest growth in mobility spending with a five-year CAGR of 7.9%.