Juniper Predicts Mobile Roaming Revenue to Increase By 21 Percent Per Year

Juniper Research, a firm that provides market intelligence, analysis and forecasting in the form of analyst reports, subscription databases and consultancy services, has recently published a report that predicts an increase in mobile data roaming revenue between 2012 and 2017 at the rate of 21 percent per year.

Juniper’s report notes that in specific areas of the world unilateral moves of operators and governing regulations slowed down revenue growth. The economy has been slowly recovering and global airline travel is steadily seeing increased traffic. Roaming revenue thus as a whole has been steadily growing globally. 


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According to Juniper’s predictions, by 2017 total mobile roaming revenue will be more than $80 billion and mobile data accounting revenue will be at about $35 billion. Total worldwide roaming revenue for this yearis expected to be about $46 billion.

There is increased competitive pressure on the roaming market, but Juniper expects it to expand as inter-regional travel increases. The travelers via their data-hungry smartphone devices now remain constantly connected.

The report also notes the number of ‘silent roamers’ who avoid voice services when they are abroad is comparatively less than the number of people actively avoid using data when they are abroad. The number of people avoiding voice services when abroad is significantly large.

Nitin Bhas, senior analyst at Strategy Research, said, “As data roaming costs are further reduced and smartphone owners find so-called OTT (Over-the-Top) services - such as eBuddy and Whatsapp - a cheaper alternative, the average spend per SMS roaming will decline over the forecast period”.

Juniper’s report details the opportunities open to M2M Roaming & Hubbing and MVNOs. It analyzes the challenges for mobile operators in the areas of VoIP, Wi-Fi and also discusses the impact of roaming frauds on revenue and the system.

. Individual case studies presented in the report provide readers information on active players in the market, their roaming strategies, their business models and the kind of services each player provides. The report also pointed out that with well communicated appropriate data bundles and roaming plans, data roaming offered a big growth opportunity for mobile network operators.