iPhone has overtaken BlackBerry as the top smartphone among mobile employees
with 45 percent market share, and overall business smartphone usage has
increased to 91 percent.
Mobility in the workforce expands within enterprises and business smartphone
usage rises. 95 percent of mobile employees have smartphones, up from 85
percent in 2010, with 91 percent using their smartphone for work — a 26
percent rise compared to 2010.
This is due in part to the adoption of bring your own device policies by
enterprises. 42 percent of mobile employees use individually-liable smartphones
for work, up from 34 percent last year, according to iPass, a
provider of mobility services for enterprises and service providers.
This expansion within enterprises has also reduced the median age of a mobile
employee to 41 – indicating that mobile employees are no longer only business
travelers; they are every knowledge worker with a smartphone.
“Today’s mobile employees are critical to the success of every enterprise,
contributing 240 more work hours a year than their non-mobile counterparts.
Connectivity is essential because work is no longer where you go but what you
do,” said Evan Kaplan, president and CEO of iPass.
“While increasing iPhone usage in the workplace was inevitable, this is
the tipping point when the iPhone has overcome the BlackBerry on its
traditional enterprise turf, and business smartphones are in the hands of
nearly every knowledge worker,” Kaplan added.
The saturation of mobile devices has led to a hyperconnected workforce that is
sacrificing sleep and exercise for their jobs. One in three mobile employees
claimed that they sleep less due to work and one in four mobile employees
sleeps less than six hours a night.
More than half reported that they exercise erratically or not at all – 60
percent attributed lack of exercise to work. The report also found that mobile
employees are emotionally attached to their smartphones — 59 percent would
feel disoriented, distraught or lonely if they were without a smartphone for
even a week.
Mobile employees waste only about 28 minutes on technology distractions. The
top two most time consuming technology distractions are work-related – first
work email, second technical issues and third social media.
BlackBerry market share declined slightly from 35 percent in 2010 to 32 percent
today, while Android nearly doubled market share year over year, growing into
the number three spot (surpassing Nokia/Symbian) with 21 percent market share.
Tablet ownership has grown to 44 percent of mobile employees, up from 33
percent in second quarter of 2011.
Mobile employees describe themselves as highly proficient when it comes to
technology (69 percent), compared to 6 percent who rated themselves as fairly
proficient or non-proficient. As a result the majority of mobile employees only
contact IT as a last resort (81 percent).
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
