Worldwide Telecom Industry

Worldwide Telecom Industry
According to Insight research, the global telecommunications industry revenue will reach $1.2tr by the end of 2006, of which 49% from mobile services, and $1.6tr by 2010. This represents a CAGR of almost 6% over the 2005-2010 period, equivalent to the level of sustainable growth enjoyed by the telecom segment prior to the technology bubble.

Idate forecasts similar growth pattern in its new study. Starting from $1.1tr in 2004, the worldwide telecom revenue should grow to $1,43tr in 2009, or a 5% CAGR over the 2004-2009 period. Mobile and Internet would drive the growth. Mobile services grew 11% in 2004 to $ 513bn, or 46% of the total. The 2bn mobile subscriber milestone could be passed before the end of the year. Internet services are now accounting for 15% of the total, and are now provided to more than 404m users, of which 50% are broadband.

On the operator side, Idate only saw emerging countries operators with strong sales growth in 2004. Even if developed countries operators keep top worldwide telecom ranking (by revenue), they reported lowest growth, but increased their profitability.

2004 telecom operator revenues ($bn)      /   growth - (Source Idate)

1 NTT (Japan)                                 99,9 /     2,6%

2 Deutsche Telekom (Germany)       71,9 / 3,7%

3 Verizon (USA)                             71,3 / 5,2%

4 Vodafone (GB)                             62,5 / 1,7%

5 France Telecom (France)              58,6 / 2,2%

6 SBC (USA)                                 40.8 / 0,1%

7 Telecom Italia (Italy)                     38,8 / 1,3%

8 Telefonica (Spain)                        37,7 / 6,8%

9 BT (GB)                                     34,1 / 0,6%

10 AT&T (USA)                             30,5 / 11,6%