IDC: Federal, Health-Care And Retail Mobile Spending Will Drive Channel Opportunities

In mature, holistic mobility markets, VARs will begin to see specific verticals, including the retail, health care and federal government markets, leverage a "deeper set of capabilities" to further transform their businesses, according to market research firm IDC.

According to IDC, enterprise and consumer spending on mobile devices, software and services will have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.7 percent, from $1.66 trillion in 2015 to $1.85 trillion in 2019.

"While mobile device ownership and general app uptake has already impacted consumers and businesses large and small, utilizing mobile capabilities to drive wholesale digital transformation in personal and professional spaces continues to represent a growth opportunity for vendors and channel partners," said Chris Chute, vice president of the customer insights and analysis group at IDC.

[Related: IDC: Top 5 Smartphone Vendors In Q4 Shipments]

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Value-added resellers who tout mobile services and solutions said they are noticing these industries drive mobility because of changing industry compliance requirements and vertical acceptance of digital transformation.

Robby Hill, founder and CEO of HillSouth, a Florence, S.C.-based solution provider, said the health-care market is particularly lucrative for mobility services as the vertical begins to focus more on mobile solutions for remote patients.

"There's a tremendous opportunity in health care as we see the Internet of Things being embraced by the health-care community," he said. "More technologies in clinical settings are being connected to the Internet and monitored by mobile devices, especially as hospitals start seeing huge incentives for remote supervision of patients. We still have tremendous mobile opportunity in securing communications of medical providers as they become more mobile."

According to IDC, global health-care firms will spend more than $30 billion on mobility solutions by 2019, representing a four-year CAGR of 7.2 percent, while mobile spending by global governments will have a CAGR of 5.7 percent over the forecast period to $30.6 billion.

Another vertical market, retail, will be a strong growth opportunity, particularly in emerging markets, according to IDC. Retail markets will deliver a CAGR of 5.6 percent as retail organizations link supply chains to customer-facing order capabilities that are deployed in a mobile-first content.

IDC also noted that from a company size perspective, offices with one to nine employees will represent the strongest share of global mobility spending, as SMBs strengthen their capabilities with industry-specific mobile apps, and startups in emerging markets develop mobile-first company platforms.

That rings true with Hill, who said startups in particular will likely embrace mobile platforms and will thus move forward with "mobile-first in their DNA."

"What we see with small medical practices just starting out [is that] those businesses [are] embracing the cloud and in turn embracing mobility," he said.