USA: The Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) business is set to undergo a fundamental transformation during the next 10 years, courtesy of the coming wireless social networking revolution.

Because of this, companies throughout the $3 trillion worldwide TMT value chain: including content providers, advertisers, telcos and electronics suppliers, must transform their business strategies as well if they want to maintain their relevance in the coming years, iSuppli Corp. believes.

"An extensive study conducted by a team of iSuppli's analysts revealed that the nature and location of value creation in the TMT market will shift due to the influence of wireless social networking," said Derek Lidow, president and chief executive officer at iSuppli. "The shifts will impact most value-chain participants, and will be highly interrelated.

"Because these changes will result in dramatic changes in growth rates and profitability, we feel it is critical for our clients to understand these shifts and make immediate adjustments to strategy in order to capture the new value created and to minimize the impact of where value will be destroyed or shifted to other parts of the value chain."

With today's TMT business representing 5 percent of global GDP, and driving a significant portion of global GDP and employment growth, these industry realignments will have impacts that span far beyond the value chain itself.

Major findings of this study include:

* Within 10 years, Social Networking + Me (SME), primarily driven by wireless devices, will become 'must-have' applications and devices for global consumers.
* Although there have not been any successful implementations of wireless social networking to date, the widespread adoption of mobile Internet devices like the iPhone will spur an entirely new generation of wireless social networking businesses and business models starting in 2009.
* Many wireless service providers will face very challenging times in the middle years of next decade as intense battles break out against alternate providers of wireless access over who controls the distribution of all the content and services that will be enabled, and will be highly sought after by wireless subscribers.
* By 2020, there will be close to 7 billion wireless accounts, with many individuals having more than one account, and with wireless communication devices being the primary communication, service and content delivery channel for virtually all users.
* Basic wireless social networking service could be provided for a global average of around $15.30 per month per user, using constant 2007 U.S. dollars.

iSuppli has summarized the findings from its wireless social networking study in a new whitepaper, entitled: Social Networking Wireless Social Networking Revolution Set to Reshape Global Tech Industry.