Value added services, especially
data services will play a crucial role in the mobile services revenue in the
next three years. According to the latest forecast from Informa Telecoms &
Media, total mobile service revenues will exceed $1 tn in 2013, despite a
projected fall in voice revenues.
The growth will be driven by VAS, primary data services
rising to over $330 bn during that period, up from an estimated $208 bn in 2008.
The growth is the result of telcos growing focus on VAS worldwide to bridge the
divide created by the fall in voice revenue following cheap call rates. In India
VAS contributes around 10% to the overall revenue of telecom operators. Lately,
the Indian telecom operators have started focusing on VAS.
Illustrating the significance of data services to mobile
operators, Informa predicts that data revenues and data ARPU in Japan will
actually surpass voice revenues and ARPU in 2014. Informa projects that data
revenues in Japan will reach $39.7 bn in 2014, and that monthly data ARPU will
be $24.56, the highest in the world. Japan's NTT DOCOMO is the biggest and the
largest 3G operator worldwide. VAS revenue contributes 43-44% to the overall
revenue of NTT DOCOMO.
Second generation mobile technologies will account for 90% of
the world's subscriptions, but by the end of 2012, this figure will fall to 70%,
and by the end of 2014 over half of the world's 6.7 bn mobile subscriptions will
be 3G and 3.5G+ technologies. Furthermore, Informa projects that by the end of
2014, 3.5G+ technologies will represent over a third of the total number of
subscriptions.
"The backdrop to this transition in the industry is the fact
that Internet has started to dominate the landscape for new services and
applications, and telecom operators are under increasing pressure to remain
valuable and relevant in the eyes of their end-users," says Mark Newman, chief
research officer at Informa Telecoms & Media.
These figures indicate that the quality and coverage of a
mobile operator's network remains an important differentiator. The explosion of
mobile broadband has renewed the significance of the network itself as operators
market their mobile broadband services around the speed and geographical range
of their network.
With global subscription penetration set to reach 92% in 2014
according to Informa's forecasts, and meaningful new growth is only available in
rural parts of Africa and Asia Pacific, data service strategies are central to
mobile operator strategies-both as a way to generate new revenues and to
minimize the impact of churn at a time of intense competition between mobile
network operators.
Akhilesh Singh
akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in
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