Infonetics Research has increased its mobile voice, broadband, and messaging services forecasts, and is now expecting telecom operator revenue to hit $870 billion in 2014. Mobile broadband service revenue is forecast to grow the fastest of the three primary mobile services, with a 25% 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2009 to 2014. The number of mobile broadband subscribers to grow to 1.8 billion worldwide in 2014 (28% of all mobile subscribers), after surpassing fixed broadband subscribers for the first time in 2010, driven by massive adoption of smartphones.
“The overall wireless industry performed above expectations during a period of economic stress — albeit unevenly across various world regions — and will continue to grow as macroeconomic conditions improve. Only the western European telecom services market was significantly affected by the economic crisis, and still struggles to recover as Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal continue to suffer. Mobile broadband and mobile messaging service revenues are growing rapidly and will help operators offset declining voice revenues, but voice service isn’t going away anytime soon; in fact, voice will still account for almost 60% of the mobile pie in 2014. Operators need to continue selling smarter phones and up selling data plans to keep pace with falling voice usage,” notes Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research’s principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure.
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