Western European Mobility Spending Forecast to Reach $225 Billion in 2017

Western European Mobility Spending Forecast to Reach $225 Billion in 2017
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A new update to the Worldwide Semiannual Mobility Spending Guide from IDC forecasts that European mobility revenues are expected to reach $224.8 billion in 2017, with a marginal increase of 0.1% over 2016. Purchases of mobile hardware, software, and services are expected to grow more stably in 2019 and 2020, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.4% over the 2015-2020 forecast period and reaching $230.3 billion in 2020.

Mobile connectivity services currently represent almost 50% of European mobility spending, with consumer counting for more than 73% of this tech category. Hardware, driven by smartphones, follows, taking 42% of the mobility market in 2017, a share expected to decrease to 37% in 2020. Software, although delivering just a tiny portion of the full mobility spending, will be the fastest-growing area, fueled by enterprise mobility management applications and mobile application development platforms, both expected to grow at a 19% 2015-2020 CAGR.

Banking, discrete manufacturing, and professional services will drive the European mobility market across commercial industries, counting for more than 35% of spending (excluding consumer) in 2017 and throughout the forecast period. When looking at growth rates, government, followed by utilities, will show the fastest growth with a 2015-2020 CAGR of around 6%. Consumer will be the only industry with negative growth for the coming years (-1.6% 2015-2020 CAGR), negatively impacted by the expected hardware drop.

When considering the business (excluding consumer) mobility European market from a company size perspective, very large companies (with more than 1,000 employees) drive market growth (7.4% 2015-2020 CAGR) and will count for almost 37% of the market in 2020. Strong mobility services investments are expected in this size band to provide an enhanced customer experience and improve employees' collaboration and productivity. On the other side, the SMB sector (fewer than 500 employees) shows much lower growth (1.7% 15-20 CAGR), although its market share will remain largely above 50% across the forecast period.

From a country perspective, the U.K. is the largest mobility market in terms of revenues, followed by Germany and France. The top 5 European countries (the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) currently represent 73% of the mobility market. The Netherlands and Italy are expected to lead market growth in 2017. Nevertheless, when excluding consumer spending, Denmark, followed by the U.K., will show the highest 2015-2020 CAGR (6%).