LIVE FROM THE GSMA MOBILE ASIA CONGRESS 2010: The CEO’s of HTC and NTT Docomo this morning rejected the notion that the mobile industry’s most profitable days are over, claiming that the rising use of smartphones and apps will boost revenue growth. Docomo’s president Ryuji Yamada went so far as to say that it is targeting higher ARPU from data services than voice services “within this fiscal year” (up from the 48.8 percent that data services currently contribute to the operator’s total ARPU levels). This is a goal that will ensure the company’s trend of declining total ARPU levels will be reversed within the next two years. “So we will return to growth, which has been declining recently,” he predicted. Yamada noted that Docomo was not alone in experiencing this trend, claiming it to be a “macro trend.” Helping to drive this growth, he said, was the fact that smartphone sales worldwide will overtake the sale of feature phones by 2014.

Speaking from a device vendor standpoint, HTC’s CEO Peter Chou commented: “It is clear that this progression is nowhere near to stopping. Revenue growth will be a byproduct of this overall growth.”

Only Li Yue, the new president and CEO of China Mobile (making his first public presentation in his new role), was more cautious on the future outlook, saying he was “not so optimistic.” However, he did cite the fact that mobile data growth over the last couple of years has doubled for the world’s largest operator, and “there will be a lot of opportunities [for future growth].”

All three companies agreed that the mobile industry will converge with external industries. “People used to say the network would turn into a dumb pipe, especially when Skype launched; I never believed that,” said HTC CEO Peter Chou. “The mobile operator plays a critical role and operators will change the way they do business over time… they can expand their business model. They could sell anything… they have the relationship with consumers that is so powerful, nobody can change that.”

Docomo’s Yamada added: “We see much potential to collaborate with many external industries; what we call social-support services. We want to ally with external bodies to provide financial services, education and environmental services, healthcare services, and safety and support services.”

China Mobile’s Li Yue advised operators to “build a bridge” to other industries but to be careful on competing with certain players. HTC’s Chou was in agreement, light-heartedly stating that “Operator’s shouldn’t compete, they should share… and there’s a lot of revenue to share.”