Comprehensive Report: Australian Mobile Phone Market Overview

This report offers a detailed analysis of the Australian mobile phone industry, examining its current state and future trends. It begins with an executive summary and table of contents, followed by an introduction to the mobile phone market. The report delves into the macro-environment, including the economic impact of mobiles in Australia, revenue of large companies, and the global and Australian mobile phone markets. It explores government policies, socio-cultural factors, and market segmentation, providing figures and tables to illustrate key points. The target market is discussed, and the report concludes with recommendations for industry stakeholders. The report uses PEST analysis to study the market and provides data on the industry's structure. Although it lacks a micro-environment analysis, it offers valuable insights into the Australian mobile phone industry.

Running head: AUSTRALIAN MOBILE PHONE INDUSTRY
Australian mobile phone industry
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Executive Summary
The following research is based on the Australian mobile phone market. The purpose of the
report is to study the Australian market and its current trends on the selling and buying of
Smartphone and other mobiles. The researcher has conducted a macro environmental analysis
on the following sector of the country and has provided some necessary data on the structure of
the industry in the country. The use of PEST analysis is one such example. The results show a
slow change of the market to a saturated one. The government policy of Australia has also been
defined in the report. The research has tried to provide all the important information regarding
the market but has failed to provide the micro environment analysis which could have made it
more compact.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
1. Macro Environment.....................................................................................................................5
Economic impact of mobiles in Australia.......................................................................................5
Australian Revenue and Large Companies......................................................................................6
Australian Mobile Phone Market.....................................................................................................6
Global Mobile Phone Market..........................................................................................................6
Australian Market Profitability........................................................................................................7
Figure No 1- Smartphone and Tablet Ownership in Australia........................................................8
Government Policy in Australia......................................................................................................8
Socio-Cultural Factors.....................................................................................................................9
Segmentation of the Mobile Market..............................................................................................10
Figure No 2- Mobile Segmentation...............................................................................................11
Table No 1- Global Market Segmentation.....................................................................................11
Target Market of Australia............................................................................................................12
Conclusions....................................................................................................................................12
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14
Appendices....................................................................................................................................16

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Appendix A....................................................................................................................................16
Appendix B....................................................................................................................................16
Appendix C....................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
Mobile Phone market consists of all cell phones, smart phones that are used for
communicating via a mobile. The following market is divided into two parts namely the feature
mobile phones and the Smartphone’s. Smartphone are advanced cell phones that serve as mini
computing devices and run on an mobile operating system. Feature phones on the other hand are
common handsets that do not offer any special advantages apart from browsing the internet or
taking pictures. The Australian mobile phone market is a growing market and has shown a
gradual improvement in the sales figures. However the trend has shifted towards a negative
growth from the year 2015 and experts predict a complete downslide of the market in the year
2021. One of the most noticeable factors of the mentioned market is that it is one of the most
penetrated Smartphone markets of the world (Hamka et al. 2014).
1. Macro Environment
Economic impact of mobiles in Australia
The introduction of Mobile phones has globalized the way people communicate with each other.
The advancement of technology has seen the discovery of Smartphone’s which has further
changed the perception of the modern world (Abeele et al. 2014). Mobile broadband connections
will increase from 55% to around 73%. An estimated 5.7billion Smartphone user will be present
in the year 2020 with an increase in the data traffic of over 47%. The revenues from data growth
will be around $1.14Trillion. The most notable factor is the prediction of 60% digital inclusion
around the whole world by the year 2020. Mobile phone industry will contribute to around $4.2
trillion in the coming years which at present are around$ 3.3 trillion (Shaikh and Karjaluoto
2015).

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Australian Revenue and Large Companies
The Economy of Australia is one of the most developed in the globe. The Australian GDP is
AUD$ 1.67 Trillion as of the year 2016. Total wealth of the island continent is around $8.9
Trillion. In 2016 it is the 12th largest national economy in terms of nominal GDP. There are many
large companies present in Australia which are registered with the Australian Stock Exchange
(Hubbard et al. 2014). Large companies include Wesfarmers, National Australian Bank, ANZ,
Commonwealth bank, Caltex and Rio Tinto group (Agar 2013).
Australian Mobile Phone Market
As mentioned earlier the Australian mobile phone market is one of the frontrunners in the
Smartphone industry. However if predictions are to be believed the market will be saturated in
the coming years. The total revenues of Australian market are around $3405.9 million in the year
2016. The growth rate was around 5.1% starting from 2012 to the year 2016 (Agar 2013). The
consumption volume of the market increased with a CAGR of 3.3% in between the year 2012 to
2016 (Sarker et al. 2016). Approximately 9.7 Million units of Smartphone’s were sold until the
year 2016. The figures are set to grow at 10 million units in the year 2021 as a result of the
slowdown. The CAGR rate will also fall to 0.6% in between the year 2016-2021 (Jackson et al.
2014).
Global Mobile Phone Market
The global mobile phone market is currently matured in the developed world with an
average of more than one phone or one subscription with every individual. Currently the growth
rate is seen in emerging markets of Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Latin America and Eastern
Europe. India and China contribute the most in the Smartphone industry of the world. Major

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Smartphone companies of the world are Apple Inc, Motorola Inc, Acer, Google, Panasonic, HP,
LG Electronics and many more as such. According to Agar (2013) the different companies are
engaged in research activities to develop their products further and maintain a superior
competitive advantage in the global market.
Australian Market Profitability
Demand for the feature phones in Australia was very high before the introduction of the
Smartphone. Microsoft Nokia was the leader in the category accounting to around 32% retail
volume share in Australia. But the adaption of windows as the operating system of the
Smartphone severely affected Microsoft as sales figures declined to around 65%. The increasing
replacement cycle and creation of the saturated market has is expected to lead the retail volume
of sales of the Smartphone’s in the country. The change in the models and the adaption of new
features has failed to woo the customers and companies are struggling to sale new phones to the
citizens of the island continent (Bhatti et al. 2017). Some manufacturers have been changing
their approach and implementing new strategies to make their product successful. Apple has
introduced a new technology called bezel-less display and launched a new range of Smartphone.
The use of such advanced technologies may help in the turnaround of the business
(www.apple.com).

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Figure No 1- Smartphone and Tablet Ownership in Australia
Source- (Huang et al. 2014)
Government Policy in Australia
All laws and codes of conduct that apply to the ACT government employees also applies to the
general employment of the different mobile devices that are used in the country. The Australian
law maintains shared services that are on a list of approved devices fully supported by the
government (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015). The requests to purchase devices must be in
accordance with the ACT Government Purchasing Guidelines and should be approved by the
delegate of the officer. The usage policies of the mobiles depend totally on the ICT Resources

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Policy (Golev et al. 2016). The current ACT government mobiles contract with the company
offers two voice plans. The first one being the $17.00 per month unlimited voice plan and the
other one being the Pay as you go voice plan (Huang et al. 2014).
Socio-Cultural Factors
a. Political factors- Australia is considered to be one of the safest places for investment.
The political and regulatory environment of the island continent is quite stable and risk
free. The country is also very much open and progressive and provides investors with a
very high degree of confidence and certainty (Huang et al. 2014). The presence of a
skilled, well educated and multi lingual workforce and most importantly the strategic
time base of the country help the investors to develop a competitive edge in the market.
b. Economic Factors- The property prices in Australia are generally high as it is a
developed economy. The high range of demand for rental spaces in large cities of the
continent makes the market very profitable for the investors to invest heavily. The stable
political condition of the country has helped the country to become one of the topmost
economies of the globe. The GDP of the country is higher than US and UK which shows
the development of the country. Strong GDP, stable economic rates, rise in the exchange
rates and low levels of inflation and unemployment makes the country an economic
powerhouse (Shaikh and Karjaluoto 2015).
c. Social Factors- The society of Australia can be divided into three main types namely the
upper class, the middle class and the working class. The rich persons that falls in upper
class consist of around 5 to 10 percent of the country’s population while the most part of
the population is middle class. Higher education generally forms the basis of the

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country’s employment opportunities. Presence of a large number of secondary schools
and most importantly colleges and universities makes Australia one of the best places to
pursue higher education (Hamka et al. 2014).
d. Technological factors- Technology leads to improvement in the cost, improvement in the
present quality and new innovations. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
research Organization and Defense Science and Technology headquartered in Melbourne
and Canberra. The concentration of research and development in and around Australia,
growing role of industry in supporting innovations and appropriate funding has helped
the country to be a technologically improved country (Huang et al. 2014).
Segmentation of the Mobile Market
The island nation of Australia accounts for 2.6% of the market value of the Asia-Pacific
mobile phones. While China leads the table with a 45.6% value Australia is in the fifth position
preceded by Japan, India and South Korea. The market segmentation in Australia accounted to
around 3,405.9 million in the year 2016 (Hamka et al. 2014). The segmentation of the market is
based on three factors namely understanding mobile consumer’s behavior, geographical
segmentation and keeping a tab on the works of the other industries.

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Figure No 2- Mobile Segmentation
Source- (Hamka et al. 2014)
GEOGRAPHY 2016 %
CHINA 59.885.9 45.6
JAPAN 17,432.0 13.3
INDIA 14,110.3 10.7
SOUTH KOREA 9,882.4 7.5
AUSTRALIA 3405.9 2.6
ASIA-PACIFIC 26,681.0 20.3
TOTAL 131,337.5 100%
Table No 1- Global Market Segmentation
Source- (As Created by the Author)

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Target Market of Australia
The leading mobile network service provider in Australia is Vodafone Hutchison. The
company has aimed to make $1 Billion every year from all the small businesses in Australia to
increase the amount of corporate customers in the country. The company plans to increase the
share of the $4.5 Billion small business market from 6% to 18% by the year 2019. Samsung on
the other hand is the largest seller of Smartphone in Australia (Shaikh and Karjaluoto 2015). The
company has segmented out the market of the country and has put stress on the urban centers of
Australia. They have targeted the youth generation for selling their new brands of specialized
Smartphone (Hamka et al. 2014).
Conclusions
The above report on the mobile phone industry has provided a very detailed description
of the different trends of the mobile phone industry of Australia. The main report is based on the
use of mobile phones, the segmentation of the market, target market and some other notable
elements of the mobile industry of Australia. A thorough analysis of the following report will
help us to conclude that the aims and objectives of the following report has been achieved. The
readers can easily have the idea of the mobile market and the related elements of the mobile
market of the country.

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Recommendations
Some recommendations of the researcher are as follows;
a. The operators must ensure to bring forth new technologies and innovative ideas while
launching new mobile phones for the customers of Australia to prevent the market from
getting saturated.
b. There should be more penetration from the mobile operators to push for a 100% digital
inclusion of the country.
c. The companies operating in Australia should target other age groups rather than targeting
the niche population to increase the demand for the Smartphone.
d. The companies must take advantage of the socio cultural scenario of the country.

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References
"Apple." Apple. N.p., 2017. Web. 2 Sept. 2017.
Abeele, M.V., Antheunis, M.L. and Schouten, A.P., 2014. Me, myself and my mobile: A
segmentation of youths based on their attitudes towards the mobile phone as a status
instrument. Telematics and Informatics, 31(2), pp.194-208.
Agar, J., 2013. Constant touch: A global history of the mobile phone. Icon Books Ltd.
Bhatti, H.S., Abareshi, A. and Pittayachawan, S., 2017. The Analysis of Antecedents of
Customer Loyalty in the Australian Mobile Telecommunication Market.
Fleisher, C.S. and Bensoussan, B.E., 2015. Business and competitive analysis: effective
application of new and classic methods. FT Press.
Golev, A., Werner, T.T., Zhu, X. and Matsubae, K., 2016. Product flow analysis using trade
statistics and consumer survey data: a case study of mobile phones in Australia. Journal of
Cleaner Production, 133, pp.262-271.
Hamka, F., Bouwman, H., De Reuver, M. and Kroesen, M., 2014. Mobile customer
segmentation based on smartphone measurement. Telematics and Informatics, 31(2), pp.220-
227.
Huang, K.L., Kanhere, S.S. and Hu, W., 2014. On the need for a reputation system in mobile
phone based sensing. Ad Hoc Networks, 12, pp.130-149.
Hubbard, G., Rice, J. and Galvin, P., 2014. Strategic management. Pearson Australia.

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Jackson, A.C., Pennay, D., Dowling, N.A., Coles-Janess, B. and Christensen, D.R., 2014.
Improving gambling survey research using dual-frame sampling of landline and mobile phone
numbers. Journal of Gambling Studies, 30(2), pp.291-307.
Mackay, M.M. and Weidlich, O., 2014. Australian mobile phone lifestyle index. Australia:
AIMIA-The Digital Industry Association of Australia.
Sarker, I.H., Colman, A., Kabir, M.A. and Han, J., 2016, October. Behavior-oriented time
segmentation for mining individualized rules of mobile phone users. In Data Science and
Advanced Analytics (DSAA), 2016 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 488-497). IEEE.
Shaikh, A.A. and Karjaluoto, H., 2015. Mobile banking adoption: A literature review. Telematics
and Informatics, 32(1), pp.129-142.
Talukder, M., Quazi, A. and Sathye, M., 2014. Mobile phone banking usage behaviour: an
Australian perspective. Australasian Accounting Business & Finance Journal, 8(4), p.83.
Walker, R., Koh, L., Wollersheim, D. and Liamputtong, P., 2015. Social connectedness and
mobile phone use among refugee women in Australia. Health & social care in the
community, 23(3), pp.325-336.

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Appendices
Appendix A – The commonwealth government of Australia has performed exceedingly well to
make the country one of the leading economies of the world. The policies and regulations present
in the country are designed to ensure the maximum possible growth for the country. The taxes on
income are as follows;
a. Income tax levied on individuals increased by 7.7% by $13,070 million to $ 183,383
million.
b. GST revenue increased to $56,462 Million from $ 945 million.
c. Taxes on property increased to $29.465Million from $3,421 Million.

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Appendix B- Figure No 1 of the following report shows the increase in the number of
Smartphone and tablet users from 2013 to 2015. The graph shows a huge rise in the figures as
Smartphone has seen an increase of 4.2 Million while increase in the number of tablets has been
the most and stood at 5.9 million. The increasing trend of Smartphone and Tablet use projects a
stagnant market in the coming years. People now spend more than 63% of their time in operating
their Smartphone and tablets.
Appendix C- The mobile market of Australia is stated to be growing at a rate of 9% since it
started growing in the year 2006. The following trend was however inflated by the presence of
Telstra’s abnormal machinery revenue collection in that following year. The introduction of the
3G and most notably the start of the 4G market have been phenomenal in the rise of the industry.
The present mobile market statistics has been shown in the figure 2.