Boston, MA - 13 August 2008 -The Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice releases its top predictions for 2009, in order to help global wireless players with their strategic planning.

David Kerr, VP Wireless, notes "As companies across the wireless value chain develop their 2009 strategic plan, they are facing an increasingly competitive and complex market. Many of the world's leading mobile operators, manufacturers, and solutions providers look to Strategy Analytics to understand the challenges they face and identify near-to-mid term growth opportunities in the areas of mobile devices, smartphones, wireless network strategies, mobile media and messaging, and enterprise wireless services."

For wireless operators, "Strategy Analytics anticipates 2009 will be a year when new and emerging business models start to make their mark, tempered somewhat by a user base that will take some convincing. Cost control will be a top issue. Although dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular handsets, femtocells and HSPA upgrades represent new platforms for driving down costs, there is a more significant issue of how operators will manage capacity enhancements, backhaul costs and subsidy strategies," says Phil Kendall, Director of the Wireless Network Strategies practice area.

In the consumer space, the momentum behind mobile advertising continues to build, with spending by advertisers on mobile ads set to expand from $1 billion in 2008 to $2.4 billion in 2009 globally, as a growing number of brands experiment with inserting ads across a range of mobile media. "Adobe's Flash will boost mobile video, games and advertising, and Nokia's "Comes with Music" will shake up the digital music market," noted David MacQueen, Director of Wireless Media Strategies.

In the wireless enterprise space, the portion of overall IT budgets allocated to wireless spending in 2008 was pegged to 12% overall. That is unlikely to change dramatically in 2009. The midsize business market still appears to be robust, offsetting cutbacks in discretionary projects in large enterprise. International markets will make up for any weakness in the US. Fortunately, spending on wireless projects is increasingly viewed as strategic, rather than discretionary," noted Andrew Brown, Director of Wireless Enterprise Strategies.