At least until 2016, mobile broadband will be the product that offers the single highest revenue contribution to growth, analysts at Ovum say. Mobile broadband will grow 19.2 percent annually and generate $122.9 billion in incremental revenue between 2013 and 2016, according to predictions.
That comes as no surprise as mobile broadband has been leading revenue growth for mobile service providers for some time.
For those of you who rightly note that 2016 is not so far away, segments with double-digit revenue growth over the next five years include public cloud, enterprise Ethernet, IPTV, and managed and hosted IP voice. But, you might reasonably ask whether it is reasonable to expect those businesses to approach the $123 billion in incremental revenue contributed by mobile data services between 2013 and 2016.
One way of illustrating the magnitude of new revenues required is to note that, globally, mobile service providers will lose about $1 billion a month in voice and messaging revenues in 2013, Yankee Group analysts predict.
Over a four-year span, assuming the rate of decline does not change, mobile service providers would lose about $48 billion in voice and messaging.
However, mobile service provider data revenue will increase from $319 billion in 2011 to $550 billion by 2016, so total mobile service revenue will increase from $1 trillion in 2011 to $1.15 trillion by 2016, the Yankee Group estimates. And the global mobile voice and messaging market will decline from $758 billion in 2012 to $746 billion in 2013.
On a global basis, telecom service provider revenues, topping $2 trillion in 2012, were generated mostly by mobile services. Some 60 percent of total revenue was earned by mobile operators,
Ovum says.
Edited by
Jamie Epstein
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