4 Million Mobile Users Means Gambling Boom

There will be four billion mobile subscribers - or well over half of the global population by the year 2018, industry insiders predicted at the opening to the world's largest annual mobile fair in Barcelona, MWC 2013, this week.

Global Mobile boom

Currently, 3.2 billion people pay for mobile services, according to a study by AT Kearney and GSMA, which represents 750 operators and organised the four-day Mobile World Congress. But it predicted that this would grow by 800 million or 25 percent in the next six years, hitting four billion by 2018.

Revenue for mobile operators alone amounted to $1 trillion, or 1.4% of the world's gross domestic product, in 2012, the report found. Most of the growth was in the Asia Pacific region, where revenue is expected to rise 23% by 2017, but Africa was the fastest growing, and is expected to add $70 billion in the next five years.

Big news for gambling

Clearly, one doesn't need to be an industry expert to understand that this also means big news for the burgeoning mobile gaming sector. And that is good news for consumers: where there is growth in the number of customers, there will also be growth in the number of products, and therefore an improvement in the number of products as well.

According to a Juniper report published last year, the combined mobile gambling market will rise from its then $13 billion a year to around $100 billion by 2017, with mobile betting at sportsbooks alone rising to $45 billion. Given the latest report from mobile industry insiders, it seems these predictions might be just the tip of the iceberg.