Yankee Group: Increased Wireless Investments by US Businesses

Yankee Group's released some of the highlights of its recently completed 2006 Transatlantic Wireless Business Survey of the current usage of and future demand for wireless voice and data solutions among US large enterprises and small and medium businesses (SMBs). Highlights include:

• The overall mobility market for enterprises and SMBs has not experienced much growth. The enterprise mobile workforce only grew 1%, from 40% in 2005 to 41% in 2006. The smallest small business segment shows the greatest market potential for the increased adoption of mobile services, with 64% of the group being mobile.
• The US wireless business market has evolved to a Big Three carrier landscape, where Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Cingular own 80% of the primary relationships in the enterprise market and 72% of the relationships in the SMB market.
• Despite heightened concerns over corporate network and data security, integration complexity, pricing and geographic coverage, almost 50% of enterprises and more than 30% of SMBs have deployed or conducted trials of a mobile data solution.
• •Wireless local-area network (WLAN) adoption has reached mass-market status among US large businesses. US small businesses are also increasingly—yet cautiously—rolling out WLANs. More than 61% of US large business and 42% of US small business respondents have either deployed or are piloting WLAN solutions. Additionally, 62% of both large and small businesses that have deployed WLAN describe their deployment as enabling full in-building coverage.

Nathan Dyer at Yankee Group said, "These survey results illustrate that even with clear growth opportunities in the US mobile business market, a number of adoption barriers exist that limit terminal potential. Greater knowledge of workforce mobility from a user level as well as business justifications for wireless investments from a decision-maker level will be critical to vendors and service providers to maintain relevance in this market."