Smartphone Usage To Explode by 2016 to 1 Billion Users

It doesn’t seem to matter where you go these days, you’ll always come across somebody using a smartphone on their commute, in a restaurant or in a cafe. If it seems difficult to escape these users, then the next few years will see an increase of them with one billion smartphone users expected to be around by 2016.

Or at least Forrester Research believe that this will be the case. Analysts at the research firm believe that in four years time, over one billion people will be using smartphones, 350 million of those will be used for work purposes and more than half of that 350 million will bring their own devices into work.

Out of all these devices that will be circulating the world, the market is expected to be dominated by Apple, Google and Microsoft with them controlling around 90 per cent of the market with their respective platforms.

Also by 2016, consumer spending in the mobile app market will reach $56 billion while businesses spending on mobile projects will double in growth. While mentioned earlier that roughly 200 million would bring their own smartphones to work, tablets will get the same treatment with roughly 70 per cent of those used for work would be owned by the employees themselves.

To compile these results, 3,534 business decision makers, such as chief information officers and I.T. technicians, from 61 different companies of various sizes were interviewed. The group made up of companies such as Microsoft, RIM, Skype, Dropbox and AT&T among others.

While the capabilities of smartphones are developing rapidly, it’s impossible to tell just how technologically advance they’ll be in four years time, the survey does reflect the fact that users see smartphones as just another way of keeping connected. They’re being used in many different ways for personal and professional methods.

Another area of concern would be the wireless and mobile infrastructure for keeping these devices connected. With a potential one billion smartphones populating the world, mobile operators and broadband providers may struggle to keep up with the demand, but by four years you would expect them to handle this demand just as well as they are now, but with faster speeds and a more reliable service.