BOSTON-The market for data cards in Western Europe is potentially large, according to a new report from The Yankee Group.
Operators, faced with restricted third-generation coverage, capacity and handsets have focused on business users and cellular PCMCIA cards for initial commercial third-generation services, said the report.
“For operators, data card users generate additional traffic and revenues since wireless data usage on laptops normally far exceeds that of a mobile phone or wireless PDA,” according to The Yankee Group. “Offering faster data speeds early on also ensures high-ARPU business customers extend contracts and don’t churn to a competitor’s next-generation network.”
The spread of wireless local area networks and increased use of laptops have boosted the data card market, said the report, and several new 3G launches this year create a large potential market for the technology.
User growth in the data-card segment will be steady but not fantastic, according to the report. The market will be inhibited by laptop penetration, the number of mobile workers and dependency on company accounts. Cellular data card users are expected to total 1.3 million by 2008, equaling less than 1 percent of the total mobile subscribers in Western Europe and about 2 percent of the region’s enterprise mobile users, said the report.
Data card sales are expected to rise from 315,000 last year to about 400,000 in 2008. 3G will be incorporated in about two-thirds of all data cards sold this year and almost all cards thereafter. Sales of GSM/GPRS cards are forecasted to decline in 2005 as 3G picks up speed, said the report. Sales of GPRS/3G/WLAN cards will peak in 2006 at which point the majority of laptops will have integrated WLAN connectivity.
