SINGAPORE ? If there is one other platform where content is king, it is the mobile space. So says an executive from research firm International Data Corp.

In a presentation during the recently held Yahoo! Southeast Asia Advertising Summit in Singapore, IDC Digital Marketplace and New Media principal Claus Mortensen said upcoming mobile phones with bigger screens and more powerful processors will be able to access the Internet almost as well as broadband-connected desktop computers. Mortensen even likened these new mobile phones to Swiss Army knives with multiple uses.

"Before, the mobile phone was just for making calls. Then it started offering data such as text and multimedia messaging. Now there are a number of mobile phone models that can view websites. Eventually, mobile phone users will access the Internet through their mobile phones almost as frequently as they would through their computers," Mortensen said.

Mortensen said in the last three years, the growth of mobile data services, of which Internet usage is a part of, has been exponential, along with the growth of mobile phone subscribers. All these he said are happening in the Asia Pacific region (except Japan).

Citing their Asia Pacific Quarterly Mobile Services Tracker research in March this year, he said the region has almost 700 million mobile phone subscribers but only about 190 million accessed data services (SMS, MMS and Internet) through their phones in 2005. By 2008, IDC sees the numbers growing to an estimated 1.20 billion mobile phone users with about 400 million mobile data users.

Mortensen projects that by 2012 Asia Pacific will have over 1.8 billion mobile phone users, 800 million of whom will use their phones to access mobile data.

"From these figures, there will be a little over 450 million Internet users among Asia Pacific countries. Currently, there are 150 million. It is a growing segment that telecommunications companies and content providers can target," Mortensen said.

With the shift towards the mobile Internet, Mortensen said many Internet applications will also be ported to mobile phones. Social networking sites, online gaming services, instant messaging, online search, and mobile payments, among others, are already becoming part of a number of services available on the mobile phone.

The viability of mobile phones as the next access platform of choice for users will also mean potential revenues for content and telecommunications providers. Services that will have revenue potential include mobile TV, video clips, Web 2.0-like user services, and mobile commerce, as well as basic Internet access.

"There's no doubt that mobile will play a role for both the user and the provider. It's all in the matter of how to package it," Mortensen said.