Mobile communications is a key factor shaping the growth of the global communications industry, according to a report from BT World Communications.
Nearly 150 million people subscribed to a wireless service last year, a tenfold increase during the last six years, said the report. That figure is expected to double again by 2000.
Other key factors include growth in the Internet, stagnating revenues from core telephone services, falling prices and spreading competition, liberalization and privatization, said the report.
The Asia-Pacific region, with a 70-percent growth rate, leads the world in annual growth in wireless users, followed by Africa with 60-percent growth, Europe with 50-percent growth and the Americas with 44-percent growth. Africa offers an important opportunity for wireless.
“Africa is the world’s most depressed economic region, and as a consequence, in communications terms, it is falling even further behind. There are fewer than two telephone lines for every 100 people, and growth lags behind other low-income regions such as Asia and Central America,” said the report.
“However, the more than 100-percent growth in Internet hosts to just over 103,000-though from a low base-indicates that there is just as much appetite for new services in Africa as in any other region,” continued the report. “Equally, the continent has almost as many mobile as fixed subscribers, foreshadowing the possibility that creative cellular solutions may be the best way to enable the region to catch up.”
BT’s report attributes much of the growth in the worldwide telecommunications industry to increasing competition. Key regulatory agreements during the last year that enhanced competition include the World Trade Organization agreement on basic telecommunications services as well as the opening of the European and Japanese telecom markets, said the report.
“Europe’s transformation, from one of the world’s most protected markets to one of the most open, signals that governments are beginning to recognize and accept the link between competitive telecommunications and economic prosperity,” said the report.
Competition has led to an increase in the number of service providers. However, many of those providers will disappear during the next decade in mergers, takeovers and bankruptcies, said the report.
“After the shakeout, what will remain will be a few-perhaps as few as five-genuinely global corporations who can offer full-service telecoms anywhere on the planet, supported by several hundred smaller regional and local partners and distributors. Beneath them will be thousands or even tens of thousands of small niche players-commodity bandwidth traders, electronic commerce providers, pricing and billing specialists, consultancies, facilities management companies, systems integrators and other value-added service providers.”
