Coming from Egypt’s leading mobile operator (Mobinil), I am interested in the global Telecom industry and what will it evolve into next? The world has been more and more familiar with the mobile telephony; you can call your friends, family and even do a business’s call from anywhere, in addition to text messaging to other mobile handsets. People loved being reachable and by time it became essential for your career and social life. Later on the biggest evolution in the telecom industry was the introduction of the “Data” component, now you can access the internet, check your emails, etc… these were the golden years of telecom. But what is next? In my research I will investigate the key players and what is the next revenue generating technology after Data.
Working as a project manager for the “new products and services” department in Mobinil, our goal is to find ways to generate more revenues from services such as mobile applications and mobile payment solutions other than a normal phone call, text messages and a data connection. This is why this research is interesting for me so that I can build on what I have experienced and have some deeper insight on the industry from a more global prospective.
There are 5 major players that have almost 25% of the telecom market share and these are China Mobile Limited, Verizon Communication Inc, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T Inc and Vodafone Group Plc all of which are generating an average of $70 billion, employing a range of 86,000 up to 256,000 employees. Reports show that the top 5 operators are still growing but at a slower rate than before, putting in mind that half of these operators are Asian companies and with the enormous growth and population size, they have a huge contribution to the industry’s growth.
As the operator’s subscriber’s base is saturating, there must be room to adopt new technologies, a good example is when the 3G network was launched, it facilitated and gave hope to more and more revenue generating services, with faster data transmissions customers were able to use and enjoy streaming and browsing the internet. Likewise the launch of the 4G network these days is expected to give another boost to the possible services that a telecom operator can be associated with. This is crucial for operators since the average revenue per customer is decreasing with the stability in number of subscribers, the operator must find ways to increase that average through new services other than simply increasing the price per minute or text message. Accordingly we can see that the market growth is forecasted to double from 2013 to 2014 and then gradually decrease again until a new technology is adopted to give another boost to the industry.
Given my experience and the mindset that has been established with my previous operator, I believe I know how to handle new ideas and projects to maximize the revenue generated from value added services to the customer.
Reference: IBIS World / Telecom