According to the Worldwide Semiannual Telecom Services Tracker from market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC), global spending on telecoms and pay-tv services is expected to exceed US$1.5 trillion in 2021, representing a 1 per cent increase from 2020.
The latest projection is more optimistic than the May 2021 forecast because it assumes a slightly higher total market value increase (0.3 percentage points). IDC attributes this upward trend to the global economy’s fast recovery following the Covid-19 crisis.
The region with the highest growth is still expected to be Asia/Pacific, where forecast growth rates have been enhanced due to stronger-than-expected growth in the Chinese mobile market in H1 2021. The outlook for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) has improved due to the full reopening of certain major European economies and the implementation of the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. The outlook for the Americas remains nearly identical to that of May, as IDC’s projections for a sluggish but steady recovery in the United States and other major markets in the region have almost fully materialised in the first half of the year.
Over the next five years, the major trends by service type are predicted to remain the same: the value of fixed voice and mobile voice services will progressively decline, while the value of fixed data and mobile data services will slowly expand. In addition, some of the habits that emerged during the covid-19 crisis (remote working, collaboration, and online media consumption) are projected to persist, making high-speed fixed data access an even more valuable asset for households and businesses.
A steady return of roaming revenues, fuelled by the global tourist industry’s revival, will be the major driver in the mobile segment. However, due to customer migration to OTT video services platforms, the market for traditional pay-tv services will continue to decline slowly.
The overall market’s growth rates are predicted to remain consistent throughout the projection period and may even accelerate somewhat in 2025. This divergence from the usual S-curve implies that 5G will be widely adopted in most parts of the world, resulting in increased spending by industries that rely on connected applications, IoT devices in the field, and management tools to ensure business continuity, resiliency, and safety.
