All five emerging markets saw double digit growth in 2007 due in large part to continued strong uptake of mobile services, says a new report published by OSS Observer, a global telecoms software analyst house and part of global telecoms adviser Analysys Mason.
The report – CSP Strategies Market Review – details how Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Emerging Asia-Pacific and Central/Latin America all had 20% or more growth in mobile revenues, in sharp contrast to mature markets in North America, Western Europe and Developed Asia-Pacific, where only North America had more than 10% growth.
The global market for telecom services is dominated by large incumbent CSPs in mature markets. However, the growth rates varied widely among the leaders, with those with significant presence in emerging markets, like Telefonica, having much stronger growth at 7% than did those, like NTT with a 1% decline, which derive most of their revenues in mature home markets.
"While revenues in mature markets continue to make up the bulk of global revenues, emerging markets are seeing faster growth rates, and are increasingly important to the large tier-1 CSPs," says the report author, Roz Roseboro, Senior Analyst at OSS Observer. Certainly investments are still being made in mature markets, especially for mobile data, but the growth potential in emerging markets is too great to ignore, as CSPs struggle to increase top line revenue."
Key findings from the new report include:
- Total global revenues were $1.8 trillion in 2007, and are forecast to grow at 5% CAGR to $2.3 trillion by 2012.
- Mobile data, helped by increases in mobile content, will grow from 19% of mobile revenues in 2007 to 32% in 2012–which translates to nearly $370 billion.
- North America, which lags its peers in deploying higher-speed mobile networks, will grow twice as fast as other mature markets, at 5% CAGR from 2007-2012Globally, all CSPs will be focused on reducing opex, with those in mature markets seeking to maintain margins in an atmosphere of slow growth, while those in emerging markets seeking to be profitable in markets with severe pricing pressure