More people will use a mobile phone to access the Web than a PC in ten years time, a Yahoo! spokeswoman has claimed. Speaking at a recent event, Geraldine Wilson, Vice President of Connected Life at Yahoo!, said: “In emerging markets most peoples’ first contact with the Internet will be with a mobile phone.” The absence of landline and broadband infrastructure in developing markets will spearhead growth in mobile broadband, she added. Wilson noted that reduced data costs, improved user interfaces and faster network connections will be key to growth, but 2007 will be remembered as the year “things started to happen.”
Wilson’s comments echo remarks made at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress this month by Yahoo!’s Steve Boom, Vice President, Broadband Access & Bundled Services. “It’s very likely that in ten years time the mobile Internet will have overtaken the fixed service,” Boom told the Mobile Asia Congress Show Daily.