Which were the fastest-growing telecoms markets in 2014?

TELECOM MARKET OVERVIEW

The telecommunication industry is considered to be one of the most dynamic industries globally. In the last few decades, the telecom industry has made rapid improvements in its services. In fact, it has changed the entire business scenario and uplifted various economies. In the present day telecom industry, the main revenue earning machine is mobile services. More and more companies, both public and private have started operating in order to tap the various unexplored markets. Over the year, the telecommunication services have become quite affordable to the general consumers, which have also led to the development of some of the fastest growing telecom markets.

FASTEST GROWING TELECOM MARKETS

A few numbers of fastest-growing telecom markets exists presently in various geographies across the globe. Some of them have been elaborated here below.

DEVELOPING NATIONS:

According to theInternational Telecommunications Union (ITU) records, it was expected that there would be around 3 billion internet consumers globally, out of which two-thirds would be from the developing countries. Mobile broadband subscribers will rise to 2.3 billion across the globe. Again 55% of these subscribers belonged to the developing nations. The mobile internet is found to be the rapidly growing market segment, having double-figure growth rates consistently in 2014, especially in developing countries. The internet growth rates for 2014 in developed countries and developing countries are 3% and9% respectively.





BRIC NATIONS:

In terms of the fixed line telecom industry, the Brazil, Russian Federation, India, and China (BRIC) nations are the inchoate and fast-growing market and had a total market value of $92.3 billion in 2014. Among these nations, China is the foremost country with market revenues of $35.9 billion in 2014, which was followed by Brazil, Russia, and India have a revenue value of $35.0, $17.0, and $4.5 billion, respectively. Brazil was also considered to be the fastest-growing market with a CAGR of nearly 6 % for the period of 2010-14. Brazil is anticipated to be the front-runner in fixed-line telecoms industry by having a revenue value of $43.8 billion in 2019, followed by China, Russia, and India with projected values of $40.8, $17.8 and $4.8 billion, respectively. The growth is mainly triggered due to the huge population base, prevailing in these nations.

CHINA:

Currently, China is the world’s biggest and fastest-growing telecom market. As per the Chinese Ministry of Industry and IT (MIIT) source, it has the world largest mobile phone subscriber base with more than 1.3 billion consumers. In the entire year of 2014, China’s mobile consumers grew by 57 million. In the last year, overall China’s telecom industry generated revenue growth of around 4% over the previous year’s revenue.



Source: http://www.nwtmt.com (All Units are in USD)

In China, the mobile telecom revenue was estimated to grow around 3% in 2014, over the revenue fig in 2013.



Source: http://www.nwtmt.com (All Units are in USD)

China’s 3G/4G subscribers were expected to reach nearly 583 million in 2014. In the last year, they have increased by 181 million.



(All Units are in USD)

In 2014, the telecom fixed asset investment in China increased by 6.3% in comparison to the previous year.


Source: http://www.nwtmt.com (All Units are in USD)

The telecom penetration rate in China for the fixed-line phones was found to be at 18.3%, whereas the mobile phone penetration rate was recorded at 94.5%. As per IDC, China has overtaken the US, in terms of smartphone shipments, mainly because of their strong end-user demand and desire for lower-price range smartphones.




China’s agreement with the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 had stemmed into the steady initiation of the telecom services market to overseas companies. Major restructuring of the Chinese telecom industry took place in 2008 that gave its way for a significant degree of market alliances. Due to this reorganization, three primary telecom operators surfaced out, who created strong foothold of the whole of the Chinese market. Subsequent to its coming in terms of the WTO agreement, China had developed plans that also comprised of embracing western-style telecommunications law and establishing up an autonomous supervisory and adjudication entity in order to handle the telecom operators. Under the WTO commitments, the Chinese government opened the telecom carriers market for the overseas venture capitalist. The foreign investors were approved to develop joint ventures, spending up to 50% of venture capital in online services in the entire country, till 49% in the mobile telecom sector in certain numbers of major Chinese cities and only 25% in fixed-line basic services in three major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Canton in 2005.

INDIA:
Presently, India is the second-largest telecommunications market of the world and has recorded outstanding progress in the last few years. The Indian mobile market is rising fast and will aid nearly US$ 400 billion to India’s total GDP. The fast advances in the telecom sector have been expedited by the generous dogmas of the Indian Government that offers relaxed market entrée for telecom paraphernalia and a non-discriminatory monitoring charter of presenting telecom services at reasonable prices. The reformation of FDI rules in India has enabled this to be one of the fastest-growing sectors, which was also triggered by the resilient acceptance of data usages on mobile devices. The mobile services market revenue in India reached US$ 29.8 billion in 2014 and wasanticipated to meet at US$ 37 billion in 2017, growing at a CAGR of 5%as per the research by IDC. Conferring to a study conducted by GSMA, it has been anticipated that India is all ready to become the fourth-largest smartphone market. India is expected to have 213 million mobile internet subscribers by the mid of 2015.The broadband services subscriber base in India is projected to increase to 250 million connections by 2017 as per the UK-based GSMA report. India seemed to have the fastest growth in new mobile handset connections of 18 million in the third quarter of 2014, which was followed by China with new additions of 12 million according to Ericsson.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN NATIONS:

According to Analysis Mason, the Sub-Saharan Africa telecoms market has been rapidly moving towards from mobile voice towards mobile data services as indicated through revenue growth. Telecom service revenue in this market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6% for a period of 5 years ending in 2018. The telecom revenue for 2014 was estimated at USD 52 billion. 


Due to enhanced 3G coverage and extensive launching of low priced smartphones have actually aided the rapid adoption of mobile data services. The Sub-Saharan Africa market contributed nearly 3% of worldwide telecoms revenue in 2013. It is also expected to rise to 3.6 percent in 2018. Mobile-broadband penetration in Africa reaches close to 20% in 2014,up from 2% in 2010.  


Conclusion:

The developing nations are the ones to have shown the fastest and relatively highest growing telecom markets. Similarly, China, India, and Sub-Saharan African nations are found to be the leading telecom markets in the world with the highest growth rate.

Methodology Used:

Mainly secondary and few original sources have been used for the research purpose.

List of Sources:
Secondary Sources:


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SWOT and PEST Analysis of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC)

A SAMPLE TEST PRESENTATION ON AN IMAGINARY COMPANY