US : The mobile market continues to be one of the most rapidly evolving areas of communications, devices, content, entertainment, and enterprise connectivity.

In an industry that appears to be dominated by behemoths, a number of small companies are poised to potentially play larger roles in the mobile industry. These small companies are hotbeds of creativity, new thinking, and innovation, but are essentially unknown to the broader mobile industry. Each year, IDC highlights ten small mobile companies that have the potential for a market impact disproportionate to their current size.

The companies that IDC has chosen to highlight as emerging mobile players to watch for 2008 are (in alphabetical order) Aegis Mobile, Enterprise Mobile, Gearworks, Hook Mobile, INSIDE Contactless, Medio, mFoundry, Mobile Posse, Mobilians, and vlingo.

The companies IDC has chosen for 2008 echo four broad strategies or attributes: companies looking to create new markets and industry sectors through new capabilities or combinations of capabilities that already exist; companies developing new ways to address existing or near-future customer and industry needs; companies that see market challenges in terms of business opportunities and are clearly articulating how to address these challenges; and, even though they are currently small, companies that have the potential to both grow and play larger roles in the broader mobile industry over time.

The role that smaller companies are playing in driving the mobile markets continues to be one of the brightest stories of mobile and is set to continue into the future. The last 12 months have shown that the increasingly rapid evolution of the mobile ecosystem and marketplace continues to create many market opportunities for smaller companies that can effectively address issues in the financial services, multimedia, content, data, search integration, application-enabler, enterprise, location based services, and advertising markets.

"Collectively, the outlook for these emerging mobile players is bright when set against the backdrop of the rapidly evolving mobile ecosystem and marketplace, the evolving market strategies of larger mobile players, and the overall trend of mobile becoming ever more central to ever more subscribers as the "third screen" in their lives," says Scott Ellison, vice president, Mobile and Mobile Communications at IDC.

The annual IDC study, Ten Emerging Mobile Players To Watch in 2008 (IDC #210553), discusses 10 smaller emerging mobile players that IDC analysts believe are worthy of highlighting to the broader mobile industry and have the potential to make substantial impacts in the larger mobile market.