Recently I came across some facts & figures which shows that recession has dampened the growth of telecom sector worldwide . But yes, there is silver lining to my statement. India & China are notable exceptions of the fact. Here are some highlights of Telecgrography’s GlobalComm survey:
- The Top 20 global service providers generated USD251 billion in revenues during the first three months of 2009; 3{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} up on Q108 but 1{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} down on Q408
- The Top 10 telecoms technology vendors generated USD59 billion in revenues during the quarter; 5{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} down from Q108 and a whopping 15{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} down from the last quarter
- Wireless subscriber additions in the quarter fell off the pace a little as 153 million net new subscribers were added, 10 million fewer than in Q408
- No less than 48{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} of Q1 wireless growth came from India and China which enjoyed an exceptional quarter; growth slowed in many other markets with Western and Eastern Europe being particularly slow
- Countries like France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Ukraine and the UK were all essentially flat in terms of mobile user growth, or even in slight decline
- Broadband subscriber additions during the quarter came in at 14 million, in line with Q408 additions. China accounted for 30{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} of global growth; the US was the only other country to add more than 1 million subscribers in the quarter
Is it a bad news? Not actually, though Q4 is supposed to be the most important cycle of market sales, you often find that Q1 has dropped sales figures at start. We don’t have to be panic; it’s just cyclic nature of market.
What’s the reason for dampening of growth? There are two reasons; first one is global recession which has actually hit all industries equally and second, the near saturation of developed market. Earlier where 6{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} growth figures are well measured in developed markets, Telegeography predicts that for next five years growth will reduce to only 3.5{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} on an average. Top 20 service providers will see y-o-y growth of 3{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3}, which will come from M&A and not from organic growth. The best organic growth performance came from Vodafone, China Mobile & America Movil.
The biggest hit in the quarter was clearly on the telecoms equipment vendors, service providers and enterprises alike. Huawei, Samsung, RIM and LGE had at least some cause to be pleased with their Q1 revenues, while Nokia, Cisco, Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent will be struggling to take any good news from theirs. Bottom of the class Nortel, meanwhile, dropped out of the Top 10 ranking altogether.
