The mobile health (mHealth) market’s worth is predicted to reach $23 billion in terms of revenue by 2017, according to a new report released by the GSM Association (GSMA) February 15, 2012 as Africa is predicted to make a revenue of $1.2 billion by that year.
The GSMA says this milestone must be driven by mobile technology which will play a significant role in the provision of healthcare services globally.
The findings are from a new report, ‘Touching Lives through Mobile Health: Assessment of the Global Market Opportunity’, conducted by PwC for the GSMA. The report looks at the key challenges the healthcare industry is facing worldwide and the opportunity mobile technology provides in overcoming these challenges.
In terms of the market opportunity, the GSMA said the research found that the provision of pervasive mHealth services and applications worldwide could provide mobile operators with revenues worth approximately $11.5 billion by 2017 while “device vendors could benefit from a revenue opportunity of $6.6 billion, content and application providers $2.6 billion, and healthcare providers $2.4 billion by 2017.”
The report noted that Europe would become the largest mHealth region by 2017 with revenues of $6.9 billion followed by Asia Pacific with revenues of $6.8 billion.
North America could account for $6.5 billion, Latin America $1.6 billion and Africa $1.2 billion, it added.
For individual countries, the United States, according to GSMA could benefit from revenues of $5.9 billion – accounting for a quarter of the global mHealth market by 2017, and revenues in China and Japan could reach $2.5 billion and $1.4 billion respectively.
To enable this opportunity, the report urged governments, regulators and healthcare providers “to work with mobile operators and organisations in the broader mHealth ecosystem, including device vendors and content and application players, to support the roll-out and adoption of new mHealth services.”
“By 2017, mobile technology will be a key enabler of healthcare delivery reaching every corner of the globe,” said Jeanine Vos, Executive Director, mHealth at the GSMA.
By Ekow Quandzie