5. App stores
As smartphones become ubiquitous, end-users are going to want to want to do more with them. Additionally operators and handset makers are desperate to diversify their offering as bandwidth and hardware become increasingly commoditised, and will want to ensure they're also service providers.
This all adds up to a massive land-grab for mobile commerce, possibly not unlike what happened to the Internet in the late 90s, and the main battle-ground will be app stores.
Once more Apple has been the pioneer on this area, and the iPhone app store now has zillions of apps, many of them free. But competition is hotting-up; Nokia has been plugging Ovi like its life depends on it - which could well be the case - and the Android store is growing fast. These will often have to co-exist with app stores provided by operators, like Vodafone.
One of the major challenges that needs to be overcome if the app store opportunity is to be fully exploited, however, is discovery. How the hell do you find the app for you when there are so many of them available from so many sources? That's why companies like Qualcomm are diversifying not only their hardware offering but investing a lot in mobile services too.
The types of app available will multiply too. Location based services and augmented reality look set to become popular with GPS becoming standard issue in smartphones and, as the chips inside phone get more powerful, things like mobile TV and contextual gaming are also likely to gain traction.
