58 / 84
he European Union’s Digital
Single Market plan offers an
opportunity to foster the investment-
friendly environment for mobile
network operators and technology
companies needed to bolster wireless
commerce across the region and
prevent the EU from falling further
behind other regions in the use of
wireless tech.
That is the conclusion of a new white
paper from the French consulting firm
IDATE, which examined the level of
mobile revenues, investments and
mobile usage in the so-called EU5
(France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the
U.K.), the United States, Japan and
South Korea. The study was in part
funded by Qualcomm and Ericsson.
The IDATE report touches on an
important set of policy questions
for the European Union, which is
taking major steps toward creating
what it calls a Digital Single Market
(DSM) that depends on reliable,
cutting-edge wireless technology and
infrastructure.
“More than ever, Europe needs top-
class connectivity. This will ultimately
determine the success of the Digital
Single Market,” Günther H. Oettinger,
Commissioner for the Digital Economy
and Society, said earlier this year. “We
therefore need rules that underpin
sustainable, market-based, high-
performance fixed and wireless
broadband infrastructures for 2020
and beyond. And it is not just about
the telecoms sector; every part of our
economy and society has a vital stake
in these issues.”
But the current economic state of
mobile technology in Europe could
place those ambitions at risk. In
Europe, there is simply not enough
investment in mobile communication
infrastructure to keep up with the rest
of the world, let alone deliver top-
class connectivity. The reasons aren’t
complicated:
While the populations of the EU5
and the United States are roughly
the same, and mobile revenue was
roughly equal in 2008, over the next
six years U.S. mobile revenue grew
steadily and European mobile revenue
declined. Average mobile revenue per
user also decreased in Europe at that
time while rising across the Atlantic-
at least in part because European
Union and national regulators on the
Continent made efforts to transfer
the economic benefits of mobile
to end consumers. And while the
evolution of mobile revenue followed
the growth of private consumption in
Japan and South Korea, and exceeded
consumption in the United States, it
declined significantly in the EU5.
“This indicates that Europe dedicates
an ever smaller fraction of private
consumption to mobile services, even
T
Europe has an Opportunity to Catch Up on
the Mobile Front
Wassim Chourbaji, Qualcomm
New-Tech Magazine Europe l 58