Global Telecom Revenue expected to reach US$2.0 trillion by 2013
October 2009
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According to the information released by HOT TELECOM (www.hottelecom.com) in its latest report “Global Telecom Market Status and Forecast”, the global telecom services revenue reached US$1.7 trillion in 2008, representing a 5.5% increase on 2007, and a significant slowing of growth (which stood at 9.3% in 2007).

Telecom service revenue growth is therefore projected to slow to a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.8% and revenue is expected to increase by US$257 billion to reach close to US$2.0 trillion in 2013. Trends impacting the current market evolution, such as the decline of the fixed voice market in most countries, the nearing maturity of the mobile sector, as well as the slowing of growth of Internet connections in developed markets, have not been helped by the effects of the global economic crisis.

An increasing percentage of the world’s telecom revenue continues to be generated by mobile and Internet services. However, these markets will struggle to make up for the loss in the fixed market by 2013, as they too will start suffering from near negative growth in some countries. The mobile sector now generates 52.8% of the total telecom service revenue, fixed lines follow with 32.4% of the total and Internet comes in third position with 14.8%.

By year-end 2008, the global aggregate number of fixed, mobile and Internet subscribers grew by 14.5% to over 5.8 billion. Nevertheless, for the first time in 2009, the growth in total telecom subscribers should drop into the single digits to 9.8%. “This is partly due to the impact of the credit crisis on customer spend in all business and consumer telecom sectors but it is mainly due to the fact that many regions are nearing saturation in each of these sectors” HOT TELECOM’s president Isabelle Paradis said.

The growth in the number of total telecom subscribers should continue to slow over the forecasted period with a forecasted CAGR of 6.4% over the next 5 years to nearly 8.0 billion at the end of 2013. The growth in number of subscribers will continue to mainly be driven by new broadband and mobile connections.

The mobile sector, which peaked in terms of expansion in 2004 and 2005 with growth rates of 25.0% and 25.2%, should continue to enjoy double-digit growth until 2011. The number of mobile subscribers rose by 20.5% in 2008 to reach 3.97 billion customers. At that time, mobile penetration stood at 60.1%, a substantial increase over 5 years earlier, when mobile penetration was 22.3%.

This 75-page report, which includes 48 detailed exhibits on the global market, confirms broadband will continue to be the fastest growing telecom sector with a forecasted global CAGR of 10.8% over the next 5 years. The bulk of the broadband percentage growth will continue to come from low broadband penetration regions such as MEA, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

When analysing the global telecom market on a regional basis, Asia is the largest region by far and now represents 48.5%, 42.8%, 38.6% and 37.2% of the world’s fixed, mobile, Internet and broadband subscribers respectively. MEA will be the fastest growing region in all sectors, apart from mobile, with forecasted CAGRs of 4.7%, 9.6%, 10.0% and 22.5% in the fixed, mobile, Internet and broadband sectors respectively.

Find out how the upcoming trends of the global telecom environment will impact your business in HOT TELECOM’s new 75-page global report, which can be purchased online through HOT TELECOM: http://www.hottelecom.com/telecom-market-forecast.html