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Report Buyer, the online destination for business intelligence for major industry sectors, has added a new report analysing the the slow growth for the European telecoms market.
“2007 European Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband – Overviews” reports that during the last few years a clear pattern has emerged in Europe’s overall telecom market: the ailing fixed-voice sector has steadily pulled down market growth, which has otherwise been pushed upwards by a vibrant broadband sector and emerging trends and possibilities in the mobile data sector.
The report shows that across the board, fixed-voice losses, which number in the millions annually, will aggravate this state of affairs in coming years. In some markets the incumbents are losing up to 2% of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) lines annually as customers cancel subscriptions in favour of mobile-only options and as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) alternatives become more commonplace.
Authors of the report note that on the mobile front, fixed-mobile substitution (FMS), is being promoted by some operators as a home-based ‘total communications solution’, bundling an all-mobile homezone offer with DSL.
The study shows that growth from the mobile sector, which has otherwise underpinned the market, has been affected both by intense competition in the voice market (lowering voice tariffs and in turn encouraging consumer take-up of FMS) and by regulator controls on roaming and termination tariffs. Later in 2008 a ceiling on data roaming tariffs is expected to be implemented across the EU, further dampening mobile operator revenue.
It further shows that the broadband sector has also underpinned the telecom market since about 2004. Although broadband Average revenue Per User (ARPU) for many major providers has risen steadily, if slowly, generating solid returns is problematic. Regulatory controls on competitive access to incumbent networks have led to an explosion in the number of Internet Service providers (ISPs) joining the market, and stiff competition has brought down consumer prices to the point where there is little room for further squeeze.
The authors conclude that given these pressures in the mobile and broadband sectors, their potential to compensate for the tragic fixed-voice sector will be marginal. As European regulators tot-up their individual markets’ value in coming months, they should not expect growth of more than 2-4% at best for both 2007 and 2008.
“2007 European Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Overviews” is available from Report Buyer. For more information, see website.
Report Buyer product ID: BUD00234
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