Infonetics Research released a new market size and forecast report, Mobile Services and Subscribers Market Outlook: Voice, SMS/MMS, and Broadband.
"There is no question that mobile broadband services represent the next big wave of revenue for mobile operators. But make no mistake: voice service is not going away and will keep its lion's share of operator revenue for the foreseeable future, even as mobile operators diversify revenue streams," said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure at Infonetics Research.
Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the FCC chairman will propose new rules and has called for a review of network management practices across all communications platforms -- including wireless networks -- which have come under fire for allegedly blocking voice services that compete with mobile service provider offerings.
The Infonetics market study highlights include:
- Revenue service providers collect from cellular services reached $624 billion in 2008 (up 13 percent from 2007), and is expected to top $877 billion by 2013.
- Between 2009 and 2013, worldwide mobile broadband service revenue will more than double.
- While service provider revenue from mobile broadband and SMS/MMS (text messaging and multimedia messaging) services is growing rapidly, voice service continues to make up the large majority of service provider revenue.
- Voice service revenue will grow slowly through 2013, driven by continuing mobile subscriber growth in developing countries and the gradual move from fixed to mobile voice in developed countries.
- LTE service revenue is forecast to grow fast, reaching $41.7 billion in 2013, with the majority coming from North America by 2012, due to Verizon's then AT&T’s LTE deployments.
- Once again, Asia-Pacific leads the mobile broadband race, led by early 3G adopters in Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
- By 2013, W-CDMA/HSPA service revenue will be almost 5 times that of CDMA 1xEV-DO, as the majority of worldwide mobile subscribers are on GSM networks.
- The number of mobile broadband subscribers is forecast by Infonetics to reach 1 billion by 2013.
