The Future of the Global Wireless Industry:
scenarios for 2007-12

Published by Analysys Mason (May 2007)

Dr Alastair Brydon CEO of Sound Partners Dr Mark Heath Director of Research, Sound Partners

Product overview

The wireless industry faces greater uncertainty than ever before regarding the future of voice telephony, non­-voice services, technology evolution, industry structure, and the relative importance of developed and developing markets. This could lead to very different outcomes for mobile operators and equipment vendors during the next five years. Organisations need to develop robust plans to steer the industry in their preferred directions, and to ensure success regardless of how the market develops. This may require a change in attitude to risk, investment in new areas of business, as well as experimentation and different approaches in different markets.

To prepare organisations for the potentially radical changes and challenges that lie ahead, this report studies emerging trends in the industry and focuses on five broad areas that will have a major influence on its future direction.

• Voice telephony – how trends such as price competition and regulation, fixed–mobile substitution and VoIP will affect the usage of, and revenue from, voice services on wireless networks.

• Non-voice services – the evolution of the wireless service mix, the extent to which mobile operators will have to diversify their service offerings (for example, to include fixed services) and the extent to which they will become low-margin data pipes.

• Technology deployment – the future role of an increasing range of technologies, including IMS, HSPA+, CDMA2000 EV-DO Revision A/B, 3G LTE, WiMAX and dedicated broadcasting technologies, as well as the impact of indoor base stations and network sharing.

• Industry structure and competition – the role of MVNOs and network-independent service providers, the ability of mobile operators to maintain their dominance of the value chain and the extent of future consolidation.

• The relative growth of developing and developed markets – the extent to which revenue growth will continue in developed markets despite mobile penetration saturation, and the extent to which industry growth will shift from developed to developing markets.

The report identifies and quantifies three plausible scenarios for the evolution of the global wireless industry, entitled ‘Emerging Markets Thrive’, ‘Cellular Goes Indoors’ and ‘Low-cost Data Pipes’. The report discusses the implications of each scenario for industry players and identifies early indicators of the increased likelihood of each scenario.