The global telecoms industry\u2019s revenues will remain roughly flat over the next few years, says\u00a0Ovum,\u00a0with a decline in spending on voice services counterbalanced by growth in spending on mobile and fixed (broadband) data services.<\/p>\n
Ovum, the global analyst firm\u00a0estimates that telco IT spending will reach US$60 billion in 2017, growing at a CAGR of 0.6% between 2013 and 2017.<\/p>\n
The advisory group contends that as growth slows, market realities mean telcos must find ways to serve their existing customers profitability rather than simply growing their customer bases.<\/p>\n
Shagun Bali, analyst for Telecoms Technology at Ovum and author of the report said: \u201cOver the next five years, service and tariff innovation will be key revenue-generating strategies, while LTE rollout, network optimization, and creative approaches to partnerships will become focal points for cost savings.<\/p>\n
“Telcos need to monetize new business models, leverage customer data by investing in analytics, and define their response to over-the-top (OTT) players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growth in telco IT spending will be driven primarily by investments in packaged software and system integration. Spending in emerging markets in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South and Central America (SCA) will drive global IT spending.<\/p>\n
In North America, telco IT spending will grow modestly at a CAGR of 0.8% to reach US$17.5 \u00a0billion by 2017.<\/p>\n
Bali states that, \u201cAlthough overall telco IT spending will grow modestly, the trend is for telcos to reduce internal IT spending and increase spending on external IT projects.<\/p>\n
“To control costs, telcos are outsourcing the maintenance of legacy IT and turning to trusted partners, both to implement unified and standards-based systems and software and to provide skills such as those of data scientists for Big Data analytics projects. Consequently, the overall addressable market for vendors will increase.\u201d<\/p>\n