Asia's low mobile penetration rate, rising GDP and increasing spending on mobile data suggest robust growth ahead, Frost & Sullivan forecast yesterday.
Although mobile revenues swelled by 15.8 percent to US$136 billion last year, the region's penetration rate stood at 18 percent.
"We expect revenues from wireless devices in the Asia-Pacific to grow 10 percent a year between now and 2009," Manoj Menon, Singapore-based partner, told The Business Times.
"Mobile data revenues in this region are set to grow 19.2 percent a year to cross US$58 billion by 2009," he said.
Most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) replace their personal computers once in four years, according to New York-based AMI-Partners Inc. The last replacement cycle was during the Y2K period in late 1999.
"The PC replacement cycle is in full swing this year, and in combination with the ongoing shift to notebooks, is resulting in exceptional growth in PC shipment," said Deepinder Sahni, AMI-Partners' senior vice president.
Singapore-based SMEs are set to spend US$1.39 billion on IT alone by 2008, according to International Data Corp (IDC).
That translate into a 4.5 percent compounded annual growth between last year and 2008, higher than Hong Kong but lower than Malaysia.
Malaysia is forecast to see 13 percent growth to 2008.
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