Where's the wirless market going in 2006?

Global growth of wireless subscriptions will slow to 20% in 2006 from 23% last year, with the biggest gains in emerging markets, especially some African countries, according to a report by Strategy Analytics.

By the end of 2006 there will be 2.5 billion mobile subscribers, up from 2.1 billion at the end of 2005, the report said. This includes about 400 million people with two phones or a separate subscription for laptop data services.

So it looks like the real growth in handset sales will come from developing markets such as Africa, Latin America, Indonesia, Russia, China and India.

For the developed markets mainly in the West, plus Japan, Australasia and S Korea the focus will be on growing users of high bandwith 3G services. By end 2005 there were 75M subscribers of advanced broadband 3G devices and that is expected to climb to 150M by end this year.

So there's lots of room left for the mobile market to grow. And 2006 will be the year of the mobile internet and picture, video, gaming and music services in particular. Don't expect mobile surfing and commerce to take off in earnest for another couple of years.