PETALING JAYA, Nov 28 – Ericsson expects smartphone subscriptions to increase 10 per cent over the next six months in Malaysia after a research revealed a tremendous rise of smartphone users.
Its Malaysia and Sri Lanka president, Todd Ashton, said the rise was due to the application of social media and instant messaging services such as Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube.
“Smartphone has become an important tool for accessing online services as more consumers in urban areas are using mobile data services,” he said at a media briefing on ‘Ericsson Mobility Report’ here today.
Ashton said the Ericsson ConsumerLab research showed that 60 per cent of daily Internet users in South-East Asia and Oceania have at least two social networking accounts while 67 per cent used more than two instant messaging apps to interact with family and friends.
“In the research, 26 per cent of Malaysian consumers declared that social media play a central role in their daily lives.
“By 2020, it is expected that there will be more than 800 million smartphone subscriptions in South-East Asia and Oceania,” he said.
The report also revealed that the Wideband Code Division Multiple Access or High-Speed Packet Access will make up the majority of all subscriptions by 2020, with about 4.4 billion subscriptions compared with3.5 billion Long-Term Evolution subscriptions.
“Data traffic will continue to grow in the region as smartphone penetration and data consumption per device increases.
“These devices account for 65 to 70 per cent of all mobile phones sold in the third quarter 2014, compared to around 55 per cent during third quarter 2013,” he said.
He added that 37 per cent from all mobile phone subscriptions today were associated with smartphones.
