Mobile devices will outstrip PCs as the leading access tool to the internet within five years according to a new report from Morgan Stanley.
The 424 page "Mobile Internet Report" predicts that the mobile internet market will rapidly become "at least two times the size of the desktop internet" market while tipping that the Apple product line "may prove to be the fastest ramping and most disruptive technology product / service launch the world has ever seen."
The report posits that based on past performance, Apple is in the pole position in the race to dominate mobile internet computing. "Apple is extremely focused on not ceding its early high-end mobile platform market leadership as it did in the early days of development of the PC market," the report said.
"We believe Apple is extremely focused on gaining wireless consumer device market share and will do what it takes to ensure it does so, including driving down hardware prices, pressuring carriers to lower or tier service plan pricing and adding new carrier and distribution partners," it adds.
It claims that Apple has a two or three-year lead backed by an installed base of 57 million handsets, 100,000 apps and 200 million iTunes subscribers with credit card numbers on file. The report adds however that Google’s Android platform has the strongest shot of giving Apple a run for its money.
It adds that smartphones "will out-ship the global notebook + netbook market in 2010E and out-ship the global PC market by 2012E."
The rapid growth in mobile internet usage is being fuelled by 3G adoption, social networking, video, VoIP and innovative mobile devices, the report claims.
