The total number of mobile data subscribers in Europe and North America will multiply 25-fold between 1994 and 2000 to just over 18m according to London-based research firm Ovum Ltd’s ‘Mobile Data: Market Strategies’ latest report. This translates into a market worth $10,000m, says the company and is a marked change from the 9m subscriber base the company predicted for 2000 when its first mobile data report was compiled last June. Ovum explains this discrepancy by saying that, until now, mobile data was focussed in vertical markets, such as police forces and airlines, and that this trend was expected to remain the same until the end of the decade. However, Ovum now predicts that the market will be fuelled by strong growth in horizontal sectors. Ovum highlights two factors this year that will contribute to broader appeal of mobile data networking: the teaming of Microsoft Corp with US paging company Mobile Telecommunications Technologies Inc, to build a $150m wireless network for sending and receiving data by the middle of 1995; and Novell Inc’s announcement that an extension to its AppWare applications development tools to create programs for remote local network access via mobile, dial-up and paging service connections will be available in September.
