Emerging economies keen for BYOD: study

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Users in Bangalore check their cell phones.

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Workers in developing, fast-growth economies are more likely to use their personal mobile devices to access corporate information than their counterparts in mature countries, according to a new Ovum study.

The research firm found that workers in emerging markets like Brazil, India, Malaysia and UAE were more willing to embrace the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend than those in mature nations, including Australia.

The majority (79 per cent) of surveyed respondents in these countries use their personal devices to access corporate data, compared to 54 per cent in mature markets such as Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and US.

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Richard Absalom, consumer impact IT analyst at Ovum, said workers in emerging economies have a more flexible attitude to working hours and are happy to use their own devices for work.

"In mature markets, employees have settled into comfortable patterns of working behaviour and are more precious about the separation of the work and personal domains," he said.

Spain is an exception to the trend for lower BYOD adoption in developed nations with 63 per cent of staff brining their own devices to work, well above the developed market mean.

"This could have something to do with the struggling economy, people are willing to use any and all means necessary to get ahead in their jobs as losing them could be disastrous given the high rates of unemployment," Absalom said.

The study was commissioned by IT service provider Logicalis.