GSMA Intelligence has expanded its coverage of financial metrics, with projections of revenues and ARPU to 2020. Over one-third of operators worldwide consistently report these metrics, across just over half the world’s countries. GSMA Intelligence has modelled values for the remainder that do not report ARPU or revenues to obtain a complete picture of the financial performance of mobile operators globally. GSMA Intelligence clients can access the full set of financial metrics here:

Nearly 800 million new mobile internet subscribers are forecast to come online in Asia Pacific by 2020, the vast majority of these coming from emerging markets in the region. But this growth is dependent on overcoming several digital literacy and awareness barriers and having locally relevant content available.

A number of countries in the region have articulated, and in some cases legislated, digital society initiatives as part of their medium- to long-term economic development goals. Their aim is to effect the development of scalable solutions that can increase the level of engagement between governments, businesses and citizens, improve service delivery, drive efficiency in resource utilisation, stimulate economic diversification, create new jobs, and increase overall productivity

We focus on coverage in this report. Globally, 90% of the world's population is covered by 2G networks and 73% by 3G. This implies that 10% of people are living in areas unable to access basic voice and SMS services, while 30% live outside of range of the mobile internet on a 3G speed or higher.

Agri VAS has been developed to overcome the ‘information gap’ faced by farmers in developing countries as well as connect farmers with other key players in the agriculture value-chain. Farming still accounts for 47% of the workforce on average across emerging markets compared to 5% in developed ones, making it a key sector economically and socially.

This data provides insight into the pace at which mobile subscribers worldwide are migrating from traditional mobile services such as voice and SMS across to mobile data services, underlining how mobile is now the primary method of getting online for many, especially in the developing world.

This is the fifth in our country overview series (following Sri Lanka, Peru, Nigeria and Bangladesh), in which we take a deep dive into the mobile market of the Philippines, and a closer look at the innovation ecosystem taking shape there.