Mobile data demand increases, mobile voice declines

Gordon Peters
Monday, 27 September 2010 20:39

IT Industry - Market

There's a silver lining for consumers as voice revenues in the Asia-Pacific's mobile phone market continue declining over the next five years as intense competition continues to push prices lower.

In a new report released today, Ovum forecasts that revenues generated in the Asia-Pacific through voice services will fall from US$182 billion in 2010 to US$176 billion in 2015, with what the telecoms analyst says is a 'trend driven by falling ARPU in competitive markets, outweighing overall growth in connections and minutes of use.'

However, according to Ovum, the picture at the country level is patchy. David Kennedy, AP research director at Ovum says that, while India, China and Indonesia are the growth engines of the region for new connections - and show continued growth in mobile voice revenues despite falling ARP - in developed markets like Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, where connection markets are saturating, he foresees 'rapid mobile voice revenue declines.' 

Kennedy says that, at the same time, there will be a healthy growth in revenues generated from mobile data services, with an increase from US$84 billion in 2010 to US$133 billion in 2015.

'We foresee both rising data connections and data rising ARPU as more consumers in Asia-Pacific opt to use more text, email, social media and video on their mobiles.  Overall, we expect total Asia-Pacific mobile revenues to increase only from US$267 billion in 2010 to US$310 billion in 2015.' Ovum, however, sees total connections increasing from 2.6 billion to 3.8 billion over the same period. 

According to Kennedy, data is now a key driver of the mobile market and he forecasts that revenues will continue to grow steadily. 'By 2015 there will be a much narrower gap between the revenues from voice and data and if data continues to grow at the same rate, it will eventually go into the lead.

'It is a reflection on the way the market is moving; voice services have become commoditized, while demand for access to the internet on the move has grown rapidly,' Kennedy concludes.