Almost a quarter of global mobile data service revenues are forecast to come from the enterprise sector by 2014, according to figures released Thursday.

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Mobile Enterprise To Deliver 25% Of Data Revenues By 2014

Industry analyst Informa Telecoms & Media expects mobile enterprise revenues to reach $92.6bn by 2014, accounting for 24 per cent of total mobile data service revenues.

The number of subscribers to mobile enterprise services is expected to 479 million within the forecast time frame, making this a strong growth area for vendors, operators and content providers alike.

Paul Merry, senior analyst with Informa, said that traditionally, cellular operators have tried but failed to capture the enterprise market, yet it remains important for carriers to develop strategies to maximise these revenue streams.

“One of the key drivers of this growth, is cellular operator interest in new service segments including the SME and Soho sector, the opportunities created by mobile convergence, growth in end user outsourcing and software as services (SaaS). These factors will be magnified in the short term by the impact of the global economic downturn,” said Merry.

Mobile enterprise is also seen as a major opportunity for new entrant players from the established enterprise IT sector, Merry added. These players are a major challenge to cellular operators having pre-existing relationships with larger corporations and access to their IT departments; they also have substantial expertise in the challenging area of enterprise service development and integration. “Integration is a major headache for enterprise service providers”, Merry said, “with larger companies invariably having pre-existing systems that require incorporation”.

The other major party involved in mobile enterprise are device manufacturers, who have identified enterprise services as a valuable service sector which they can develop to drive uptake of smartphone devices. Players in this sphere include RIM, which through its BlackBerry enterprise server (BES) and recently launched App World store, provides the service platform and the services themselves to potential enterprise users.

Get more information on Informa’s Mobile Enterprise report (third edition).