Pyramid Research is out with a report that highlights mobile revenue growth in emerging markets regardless of what the rest of the global economy look like, forecasting that with economic growth projected to quintuple in those markets compared to developed markets, mobile will be the easiest tagalong.
In its “Top Trends in the Global Communications†report, Pyramid says about 90 percent of the 2 billion subscribers to come online in the next five years will be in emerging markets, driving mobile service revenue in those markets in 2015 to be larger than mobile service revenue in developed markets for the first time ever. The report says mobile subscriptions will pass 7 billion in 2013, with only APAC and AME regions being below 100 percent penetration. But, Pyramid posits, AME will have more mobile subscriptions than all developed regions by 2022.
That ubiquity of mobile service will create massive opportunity for operators ready to go to market with OTT solutions ready to take advantage of new technologies like HEVC, which will cut bandwidth use by more than 30 percent and save operators billions in the process.
Pyramid also highlights the growth of OTT video, and says that content delivery networks are poised for rapid growth in emerging markets as well, markets the company describes as “relatively open†as compared to mature markets where CDNs like Akamai and Limelight are well entrenched. The report suggests that emerging markets may see telcos move more aggressively into the CDN space, creating their own networks, taking advantage of slow-developing federations, and providing CDN services to third-party OTTs (online distributors, broadcasters, etc.) and to other operators.
Pyramid said, “We anticipate dramatic growth in online video consumption in 2013, most notably in price-sensitive emerging markets, where there is strong demand for online video and OTT is becoming an attractive option for users.â€
