The average company in Asia-Pacific will spend $13 million to $22 million to market, sell and service digital mobile consumers in 2012, new research shows.
The Tata Consultancy Services www.tcs.com (TCS) study also revealed that 82% of leading firms already treat digital mobile consumers as a unique customer segment.
Of these firms, 85% created a new product and service offering for digital mobile consumer.
By 2015, it is forecast that investment levels in this segment will rise to between $22 million and $26 million annually.
However, in Asia-Pacific, companies will spend far more on responding to digital mobile consumers than companies in North America, Europe and Latin America. The study showed that companies here will spend $2.41 million per $1 billion revenue.
Comparatively, $1.43 million will be spent in North America, $1.59 million in Europe and $1.63 million in Latin America.
Looking ahead to 2015, levels of investment will grow with spending per $1 billion revenue to increase to $2.85 in Asia-Pacific, $1.98 million in North America, $1.76 million in Europe, and $2.72 million in Latin America.
"The digital consumer is an exciting and complex customer segment that global corporations have to understand and engage with," said N. Chandrasekaran, CEO and Managing Director for Tata Consultancy Services.
"These consumers are diverse in their need, their interactions are flexible and often conducted 'in motion'. Keeping their attention means being able to serve their dynamic needs by leveraging the power of digital and mobile technologies to engage with them," he added.
In contrast, the study noted that there are businesses across all four regions, which are failing to address the opportunity presented by the digital mobile consumer.
Just 28% of "laggards" have made the digital mobile consumer a unique market segment, while only 30% of such firms have created new product or service offerings for this audience, it said.