Global Mobile Revenues to Exceed $1 Trillion for First Time in 2013

Despite a projected fall in voice revenues, mobile service revenues will exceed are expected to exceed $1 trillion in 2013, according to Market research firm Informa Telecom's & Media.

 

According to the company’s latest research, much of the growth will come from data service - a segment whose revenue is set to exceed an estimated $330 billion that year alone. This figure is up from the $208 billion earned in 2008.

 

'The backdrop to this transition in the industry is the fact that the Internet has started to dominate the landscape for new services and applications, and telecoms operators are under increasing pressure to remain valuable and relevant in the eyes of their end-users,' Mark Newman, chief research officer at Informa (News - Alert) Telecoms & Media said.

 

'As this happens, the growth in data revenues is being spurred by the rise in take-up of more advanced technologies and mobile broadband services, as well as new handset interfaces and mobile content strategies based on application stores rather than walled gardens', Newman said.

 

According to officials with Informa, Japan is a prime example of a country where a majority of youngsters access the Internet via their mobile phones. As a result, data revenues and data ARPU in Japan are predicted to surpass voice revenues and ARPU in 2014.

 

At a time when Japan's mobile operators are looking for more sustainable revenue streams by offering personalized services that make use of their high network capacity for data, the advent of LTE (News - Alert) in Japan, as well as other markets, should help support this boom in data revenues, officials with Informa claim.

 

While second-generation mobile technologies are expected to account for 90 percent of the world's subscriptions, according to Informa officials, by the end of 2012, this figure will fall to 70 percent, and by the end of 2014, over half the world's 6.7 billion mobile subscriptions will be to 3G and 3.5G+ technologies.

 

Quality and coverage remains an important differentiator for mobile operators as the explosion of mobile broadband has renewed the significance of the network itself.

REVE Systems, a Singapore-based provider of VoIP products and solutions, makes it possible for service providers to offer a seamless VoIP experience to mobile customers.