Europe as a region has the highest adoption of mobile services at 121% penetration and this is expected to rise to 135% by 2012. At these high penetrations, overall service revenue growth through the handset is expected to decline. However, ARPU is expected to continue growing among business users.

In a new market data product from ABI Research, overall business revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 4%, a significant statistic considering that ARPU from consumer mobile services will stay flat at a CAGR of 0.1%.

Says practice director Dan Shey, "Not surprisingly, data services are providing the ARPU uplift driven by the uptake of smartphones, and adoption and usage of mobile e-mail and Internet services. However, the impact of these drivers as well as others is different for business customers in different occupational segments; the end result is a unique set of subscriber and ARPU growth rates, penetration, and total revenue opportunity by occupation."

Shey adds, "In the current economic environment, focusing resources on the right business user segments is absolutely essential. Understanding the opportunities specific to each business subsegment will not only allow mobile suppliers to stay solvent in 2009 but will also position them for growth in better times."