GSMA and Deloitte released their first report on the impact of various mobile services on economic growth. The report ‘What Is the Impact of Mobile Telephony on Economic Growth?’ provides the first estimates of the impact of mobile data usage on GDP growth in developed and developing markets.
Key findings of the report include:
- A doubling of mobile data use leads to an increase of 0.5 percentage points in the GDP per capita growth rate across the 14 countries;
- Countries characterised by a higher level of data usage per 3G connection have seen an increase in their GDP per capita growth of up to 1.4 percentage points;
- A 10 per cent rise from 2G to 3G penetration increases GDP per capita growth by 0.15 percentage points; and
- In developing markets, a 10 per cent expansion in mobile penetration increases productivity by 4.2 percentage points.