Deloitte Canada parses the TMT landscape
Deloitte Canada is betting that 2015 will mark the tipping point for near-field communication (NFC)-enabled smart phone in-store payments, the professional service firm reports in its 14th annual Technology Media & Telecommunications Predictions.
“2015 will be the first year in which all the requirements for mainstream mobile payments – satisfying financial institutions, merchants, consumers and device vendors – have been sufficiently addressed,” according to Duncan Stewart, director of TMT research at Deloitte Canada.
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Robert Nardi, partner and national TMT leader, also said that refresh cycles for smart phones will become longer but decline in purchases will not likely approach that for PC. “Pride, pixel count, durability and storage needs will continue to drive growth for smart phone refreshes.”
Here’s a quick look at 10 more TMT predictions that will impact Canada:
Mobile payment–
In 2015, about five per cent of the base of 600 million NFC equipped smartphones worldwide will be used to make an in-store NFC payment at least once a month, compared to less than half a percent of about 450 million NFC phones in mid-2014.
In-store mobile payments in the Canadian market are likely to be slower than the US, depending on when various payment services are introduced, but 56 per cent of Canadians are not interested in paying with a smartphone.
Smart phone upgrade market to exceed one billion– 1.4 billion smartphones will sell worldwide in 2015, but over a billion of them will be upgrades – new phones for those who already have one.
The refresh cycle may be lengthening, but screen size, speed, storage, software and design will drive growth for smartphone refreshes. In Canada, more than 5 million smartphone sold will likely be upgrades.
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The printed word lives – Print book sales books will be at least four times the sales of eBooks globally. eBooks have not substituted print books in the same way that sales of CDs, print newspapers and magazines have declined.
Young people (age 18-34) are as attached to print books as their elders and read at about the same rate than older demographics, and they are willing to pay for them.
Millennials to lead TMT spending– Millennials, (18-34 years old) in Canada will spend an average of $750 for content, both traditional and digital. With 9 million millennials, that’s nearly $7 billion in sales for the Canadian media industry.
Millennials will open their wallets for: Pay TV, music, computer games, books, live sports, streaming video, and even print newspapers.
In an Ipsos survey, commissioned by Deloitte, more Canadians aged 18-32 increased or spent the same amount of money this year than last on books (84 per cent), live music (83 per cent) or live sports (92 per cent) relative to GenX-ers (78 per cent, 76 per cent, 82 per cent respectively) or Boomers (78 per cent, 73 per cent, 76 percent respectively).
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A click and collect boom– Click and collect provides shoppers with the option to pick up items purchased online from locations such as a special section in a store, or a secure locker located in a transit station or a shopping mall.
It is prevalent in Europe, but just starting to be trialed in Canada, even though the concept was pioneered by a Canadian company back in the Dotcom era.
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Connectivity gap deepens – Globally, the number of homes with broadband Internet will grow by about two percent to 715 million, and average broadband speeds in most countries will increase by 20 per cent. But variations in broadband speed in homes will be significant.
The top group of homes in some markets will have five times the average speed of those in the bottom group. Factors unique to each home from the thickness of walls, age of a router, time of day and browsing habits of neighbours will determine the actual speeds attained at each broadband-connected device.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians get broadband speeds of more than 50 Mbps, but even more have realized ‘broadband’ speeds of less than 5 Mbps.
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IT consumerization ends – In 2015, the pendulum of technology adoption will begin to swing back to the enterprise market, reversing a decade long trend that went the other way – when mass adoption of technologies like large screen smartphones and tablets started with consumer adoption first.
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Enterprise digs IoT – In 2015, over 60 per cent of the one billion global wireless Internet of things devices will be bought, paid for and used by enterprises – despite media focus on consumers controlling their thermostats, lights, and appliances (ranging from washing machines to tea kettles).
The IoT-specific hardware will be worth $10 billion, but the services enabled by the devices will be worth about $70 billion.
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Enterprise digs 3D printing too– In 2015 nearly 220,000 3D printers will be sold worldwide, with a dollar value of $1.6 billion, but it is unlikely that there will be a “factory in every home.”
Deloitte estimates about 80 percent of the value of all 3D printers will be for companies instead of consumers, meaning the real revolution will be in the enterprise market.
Going long on short form video – The total time spent watching online short-form video clips and programming of less than 20 minutes in length will represent less than three percent of all video seen in the year, both in Canada and globally.
However, viewers of short form video may be more engaged and less passive than viewers of traditional long form video, meaning that ads for short form video may generate higher sales with a more-engaged audience.
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