If There Was Ever A Reason To Be Bullish On The Internet…

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We spend so much time focused on the horse race within the internet that it's easy to lose sight of just how big the overall sector is. And more importantly, how much bigger it's going to be and how it's changing.

Boston Consulting Group recently released a fascinating study on the evolving nature of the web economy.  While there were a number of interesting tidbits, the most eye-popping takeaway was the changing way people are accessing the internet.

While we tend to think of internet access as ubiquitous nowadays, as recently as 2005 only 167 million people in G-20 countries were connected to the internet—all through a fixed line (which includes wireless routers). By 2015, BCG estimates 2.7 billion G-20 citizens will be connected and a whopping 79 percent of them will do so through a mobile device (including tablets). There should be no question whatsoever that a medium used daily by more than two and a half billion people in twenty countries alone yields an absolutely enormous business opportunity.

On the heels of Apple's monster quarter, when iPhones and iPads accounted for over 70 percent of revenue, we believe it's also safe to say the post-PC has arrived and we are now in the age of mobile computing.

A few other findings of the study (which was partly financed by Google):

  • The internet economy may be worth up to $4.2 trillion to G-20 countries by 2015;
  • Connectivity is exploding in emerging markets and opening up new growth opportunities in the process;
  • Global IP traffic will increase more than 30-fold between 2005 and 2015.

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