CONNECTING THE WORLD
“ As the industry evolves , smartphones are becoming lifestyle hubs that are creating opportunities for mobile industry players in vertical markets such as financial services , healthcare , home automation and transport .”
- Hyunmi Yang , GSMA ’ s Chief Strategy Officer
Baksaas since 2002 . The association carries out activities and provides expertise in an enormous variety of areas , from public policy and apps guidelines to disaster response and security .
One of its key missions is to deliver “ ubiquitous mobile broadband access ” across the world , and its Spectrum team is dedicated to organising key industry events to help channel the activities of operators towards this end .
The Mobile World Congress epitomises this , with “ connecting the underserved ” a major topic for the 2015 event to be held in Barcelona at the beginning of March , boasting some of the most important figures in the telecoms and internet space as keynote speakers .
Overall , more than 1,900 companies are expected to exhibit , including recently confirmed brands such as China Mobile , Ericsson , Fujitsu , Gemalto , General Motors , MasterCard , Mozilla , Nokia , NTT DOCOMO and Visa .
Key to empowering the unconnected will be smartphones according to the GSMA ’ s Chief Strategy Officer Hyunmi Yang . “ As our study shows , smartphones will be the driving force of mobile industry growth over the next six years , with one billion new smartphone connections expected over the next 18 months alone ,” he said .
“ In the hands of consumers , these devices are improving living standards and changing lives , especially in developing markets , while contributing to growing economies by stimulating entrepreneurship .
34 April 2014