July 24, 2019//-5G is now upon us, bringing with it the promise of a host of exciting new services.
As the boundaries between mobile and the wider digital ecosystem continue to blur, and as data monetisation poses a continued challenge, many operators are moving beyond their traditional telco businesses to explore new opportunities in a fast-changing competitive landscape.
IoT: Between 2018 and 2025, the number of global internet of things ( IoT) connections will triple to 25 billion, while global IoT revenue will quadruple to $1.1 trillion.
With connectivity becoming increasingly commoditised, mobile operators are looking to expand their role in the value chain – from providing essential tools and capabilities for ecosystem partners to build IoT solutions, to becoming end-to-end IoT solution providers themselves.
Content: The content sector is undergoing significant transformation driven by shifting consumer behaviour, new players and changing content production and distribution models.
To benefit from an unprecedented level of content consumption, an increasing number of telecoms operators are entering the content space or strengthening their existing content offerings, through vertical integration, partnerships with over the top (OTT) video service providers or creating content themselves.
Artificial intelligence (AI): AI will be key to future business and digital transformation. It will drive increasingly autonomous and intelligent networks and improve customer experience through greater learning of customer behaviour.
Operators across the globe are growing their focus on AI, with AI-based applications including chatbots and digital assistants, network operation/planning, customer care, advertising and AI as a service.
Devices: While their ubiquity means smartphones remain the focal point of the consumer internet economy, the range of connected devices (and therefore internet access channels) is greater than ever.
In the most advanced countries, today’s digital consumers (using PCs and smartphones) will likely become tomorrow’s augmented customers, adopting emerging technologies such as AI (via smart speakers) and immersive reality.
Over the coming years, these new opportunities have the potential to provide an uplift to mobile operator revenue which, particularly in developed markets, is still under pressure from slowing unique subscriber growth, regulatory intervention and intense competition.
The US is already seeing early signs of this uplift: modest revenue growth is returning after a difficult 2017, largely due to mobile operators aggressively pursuing new incremental revenue opportunities in content, IoT and 5G.
Overall, the global revenue outlook remains positive, with an annual average growth rate of 1.4% between 2018 and 2025.
Executive Summary of GSMA’s 2019 Mobile Economy report
