The investment opportunities in data addiction

by Tim Dohrmann

I’m probably one of the few Aussies who have never been to Bali.

Indonesian Bali, that is. Last month I made my way to Bali in Greece.

Bali is one of the nicer beaches on the island of Crete. Plunging cliffs, soft smoky sand, warm Mediterranean water…it’s easy to take.

As I reclined on a sunlounger and surveyed my surroundings, I noticed something funny.

Here we were at one of Europe’s most peaceful, pleasant destinations. But instead of surfing the waves, just about every person on the beach was surfing a smartphone.

Addiction to mobile data has grown way beyond the behaviour you see on the train to work and around restaurant tables. It’s becoming a full-blown global epidemic.

Growth in high speed mobile data consumption is not a new theme. But I firmly believe that you just can’t overestimate how far this will run.

People all over the world will demand staggering amounts of bandwidth in the coming years. Kids born today will expect access to complex, data-intensive online content in far-flung locations as their absolute birthright.

Telco service providers hold the whip hand here. I’d back their ability to feed the global data addiction at increasingly profitable rates.

As long as they don’t fall into the trap of brawling over price and capacity, like Qantas Airways Ltd [ASX:QAN] and Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd [ASX:VAH] have done over the past few years, the mobile data theme will remain investable.

This is why the growth of online connectivity has been one of my key themes this year inAustralian Small-Cap Investigator.

The world truly is moving towards more immersive technology at an unprecedented pace. A wise investment in the right tech stocks today could repay you several times over.

Tim Dohrmann+
Small-Cap Analyst, Australian Small-Cap Investigator

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