Mobile industry to reach 2% of global GDP, 6B subs in 2011

The worldwide mobile industry is set to reach $1.3 trillion in revenue this year, or almost 2 percent of global GDP, according to analyst Chetan Sharma’s latest report.

Additionally, Sharma expects mobile subscriptions to reach 6 billion globally in 2011, with India and China leading the way as they march towards 1 billion subscriptions each. “The first 1 billion took over 20 years and this last one is going to take only 15 months,” he wrote.

Sharma’s projections come from industry analysis from the first half of the year. They may not all come to pass, but given the exponential  growth of the mobile industry of the past few years, they don’t seem too farfetched either. We’ll be exploring a slew of hot mobile topics, including the rise of 4G, mobile payments, and mobile gaming, at our MobileBeat 2011 conference in San Francisco next week.

While China and India will lead in total mobile subscriptions, Sharma says the US will still dominate when it comes to mobile revenue. Overall, he expects worldwide mobile data revenue to surpass $300 billion for the first time this year. At least 50 mobile carriers will reach $1 billion in mobile revenues by the end of this year.

Smartphone sales in the US have recently overtaken dumbphone sales, while worldwide smartphones only account for 26 percent of mobile sales. Over time, we can expect the US to continue to lead when it comes to smartphone penetration.

To stem the tidal wave of mobile data demand, Sharma recommends that carriers take a holistic approach to managing network data. That involves taking advantage of a variety of methods, including offloading traffic to Wi-Fi when necessary.

Via GigaOm; photo via Ed Yourdon

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link.