Mobile technology and economic growth

Lessons to accelerate economic growth and recovery

There has never been a greater dependency on digital technology. During the Covid-19 pandemic, digital technologies have allowed economic activity to continue, enabling new ways to deliver education and healthcare, and allowing workers and firms to maintain productivity. With half of the world’s population using mobile internet, mobile technology has played a critical role in this. As such, governments across the globe are increasingly relying on mobile and digital technologies as a vital tool for short-term recovery, as well as for longer-term economic growth and job creation.

In this context, it is timely to consider what role mobile and digital technologies can have on economic growth as 5G begins to enable a new wave of economic transformation and as efforts to achieve universal internet access gather pace, especially with the full rollout of 4G in developing markets. This report provides novel evidence of the impact of mobile during the last two decades, a period which covers most of the rollout of three generations of mobile technology in both developed and developing countries.