Third Quarter 2013 Mobile Revenue Growth Crawls Globally at Two Percent

According to Strategy Analytics, Inc. the third quarter mobile revenue numbers for 2013 saw almost no movement at all. The annual global mobile service revenue noticed an increase of just two percent in Q3 2013. This is only half the growth rate that was achieved in 2012.

This information comes to us from a new report from Strategy Analytics. The report is entitled “Wireless Operator Performance Benchmarking, Q3 2013.” Strategy Analytics is a global organization with analysts based in the Europe, Asia and the Americas. Its analysts specialize in tracking, analyzing and forecasting markets such as wireless devices, consumer electronics, automotive electronics, entertainment and media, defense systems, telecommunications and related digital products and services.

This quarter’s report shows that there seems to be a rapid decline in Western Europe. In comparison, the U.S., South Korea and Japan are providing a very positive, improving picture in the 4G LTE market.

A very brief summary of the report says that the world’s mobile operators’ finances almost stood still in Q3 2013, with service revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) growth of less than 2 percent. Contraction in Western Europe continues to bring down global averages, with the Asia-Pacific region dominating the growth picture. This data table tracks the operational and financial performance of 224 active wireless operators, which collectively account for 78 percent of the world's cellular subscriptions.

A further breakdown of the database shows some figures that are attributed to the widen gap. We see that the annual revenue growth in South Korea is four percent, with the U.S. showing three percent and Japan coming in at one percent.

This is in stark contrast to Western Europe who had a negative nine percent. It would seem that the report sees the cause for this as being economic challenges, competitive intensity and more limited promotion of 4G LTE services for mobile operators.

The author of this report, Phil Kendall made the following comments: "Europe's mobile operators are still struggling to correct market declines, with the deteriorating performance helping to fuel recent consolidation in the region. 4G LTE has yet to provide much of a revenue boost here, with operators struggling to identify revenue enhancing growth stories and so resorting to improving value for customers through lower prices."

Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, who is director of wireless operators and networks, at Strategy Analytics added "The picture in Japan, South Korea and the U.S. is more encouraging, where revenue growth has been maintained or improved through rapid migration of connection volumes to 4G and pricing successes in areas such as tiered and shared data plans. LTE is not the answer to all Europe's woes, but will be important in helping to shift mobile user behavior from price-based to more quality-based decisions."

If you want to read the entire report from Strategy Analytics, it can be yours for just a penny under $7,000.