Deloitte Luxembourg presented the firm's global Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions report during a webinar held on this Tuesday, January 25. This year’s trends highlights how worldwide trends in TMT may affect businesses and consumers worldwide. 

The 2022 predictions, introduced David Osville, TMT Leader at Deloitte Luxembourg, and presented by Paul Lee, Partner at Deloitte UK, are largely driven by the global pandemic’s economic and societal shifts, resulting in a more connected and multi-device world, fueling the world’s need for more chips, growth in connectivity, and how more aspects of our daily lives are becoming intrinsically linked to a digital world. The collection also looks at new opportunities that are emerging despite the pandemic.

Below is our own selection from among what we picked up at the conference or drew directly from Deloitte's report. 

AI and managing sensitive data

Deloitte predicts that 2022 will see a great deal of discussion around regulating AI more systematically, with several proposals being made, although enacting them into fully enforced regulations will not likely happen until 2023 or beyond. Some jurisdictions may even try to ban whole subfields of AI - such as facial recognition in public spaces, social scoring, and subliminal techniques - entirely. In addition, driven by the increasing urgency of safeguarding data used in AI applications, emerging privacy enhancing technologies such as homomorphic encryption (HE) and federated learning (FL) will also experience dramatic growth. Already in use by leading technology companies today, the combined market for HE and FL will grow at double-digit rates in 2022 to more than €220 million, and by 2025, this market is expected to top €440 million. 

Wi-Fi 6 outselling 5G devices

Many countries have adopted 5G over the past two years, but Wi-Fi 6 devices are now quietly outselling 5G devices by a large margin and will likely continue to do so for the next few years. Deloitte predicts that more Wi-Fi 6 devices will ship in 2022 than 5G devices, to the tune of at least 2.5 billion Wi-Fi 6 devices versus roughly 1.5 billion 5G devices. The reason: Wi-Fi 6, just as much as 5G, has a significant role to play in the future of wireless connectivity - not just for consumers, but also for the enterprise.

Smartphone sustainability

The world's most popular consumer electronics device - expected to have an installed base of 4.5 billion in 2022 – will generate 146 million tons of CO2 or equivalent emissions (CO2e) in 2022. While this is less than half a percent of the 34 gigatons of total CO2e emitted globally in 2021, it is still worth trying to reduce. There is clear evidence the industry is making smartphones more sustainable, by reducing the need for unplanned replacement, offering software support for smartphones for longer and lengthier phone lifetimes, ultimately helping to reduce the environmental impact of smartphones.

Surge in chip demand but supply crisis continues

Deloitte predicts that many types of chips will still be in short supply during 2022, but it will be less severe than it was for most of 2021, and it will not affect all chips. The continuation of the chip shortage and its staying power boils down to a significant surge in demand, driven by digital transformation and accelerated by the pandemic.

Continued focus on diversity, equity and inclusion

Although the largest players in the technology industry are closing the gender gap and will reach 33% overall female representation in the workforce in 2022, women in technical roles continue to lag by 8% and the pandemic has caused increased churn with 57% of women in TMT expecting to change employers within two years and a startling 22% considering leaving the workforce citing workload increases impacting wellbeing.

Streaming providers at daggers drawn

As leading streaming providers expand globally, while national media companies spin up their own domestic streaming services, the amplified competition is creating abundant consumer choice—and accelerating churn. In 2022, Deloitte predicts that at least 150 million streaming video-on-demand services (SVOD) paid subscriptions will be cancelled worldwide, with churn rates of up to 30% per market.

Strong demand for wearable wellness technology

Deloitte predicts that 320 million consumer health and wearable wellness devices will ship worldwide in 2022, and by 2024, that figure will reach 440 million units. This is being driven by new offerings hitting the market and more health care providers becoming comfortable using them. Their impact will increase even more if doctors trust their utility and people feel their data is secure. Similarly, an increased focus on mental health and wellbeing will contribute to global spending on mobile mental health applications reaching close to €440 million in 2022. 

NFTs kick sports collectables into the digital age

Deloitte predicts that Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for sports media will generate more than €1.76 billion in transactions in 2022, about double the figure for 2021. By the end of 2022, we expect that 4 to 5 million sports fans globally will have purchased or been gifted an NFT sports collectible. Interest in sports NFTs is likely to be spurred by activity in the wider NFT market, including digital art, the top five most valuable sales of which had generated over €88 million by August 2021. 

The presentation was preceded by a panel discussion on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practice in the technology sector involving, in addition to Paul Lee, Evie Roos, Chief Human Ressources Officer at SES Satellites, and Brian Buchwald, Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer at Talkwalker. The debate was moderated by Deloitte Luxembourg's Sustainability Leader, Francesca Messini.

Michaël Renotte