20 reasons for telecoms to be cheerful in 2024

From progress on 6G to FTTP coverage, according to Omdia’s Service Provider analysts, the overall outlook for the global telecoms industry is looking positive?

According to Omdia ’s analysis of the current state of the global telecoms market, there are plenty of reasons for the telecoms industry to feel positive in 2024 about future growth, investment opportunities and progress in emerging technologies. There’s even positive news on the policy front.??

Here are 20 highlights from recent Omdia research, giving you reasons to be cheerful about telecoms industry growth and opportunities in 2024.?

1. Total telecoms connectivity revenues reached US$312 billion for the first time in Q2 2023, with a 4.2% YoY growth.??

2. 5G take-up is driving traffic growth. For example, in the UK, mobile subscriptions are expected to surpass 115 million by 2028 with 5G accounting for 84% of the total. This is expected to drive cellular data traffic growth, from 22% in 2023 to 37% in 2028.?

3. With the candidate frequency bands identified during WRC-23, 6G has the official green light needed for bringing it to commercial reality. Research, and something of a 6G race is already underway in Asia, but there is of course still a lot of work to be done to progress in 6G deployment .

4. There is positive news on policy and sovereignty, with policymakers beginning to align with telcos. UK regulator Ofcom is consulting on plans to free up additional spectrum in the 1.4GHz band for mobile use. Ofcom also apparently hopes to relax the rules around 3.8–4.2 GHz band usage, and license 5400 MHz of mmWave spectrum.?

5. The telco shift to B2B, particularly in enterprise, is expected to deliver future diversification and growth – some service providers have already achieved marked growth from this shift, e.g. China Telecom Global (approx. 140%), Mobily (approx. 120%) and Cable ONE (nearly 100%).?

6. In the UK mobile market, inflation-linked pricing has driven ARPU growth. Total mobile subscriptions reached 103 million in 3Q 2023, boosted by 12.4% YoY growth in IoT. Mobile service revenue grew 4.7% YoY in 3Q23, and ARPU grew by 2.5% despite dilution by IoT.?

7. Network API are now a commercial reality, enabling developers and enterprises to use APIs to perfect their applications. Since the telecoms industry has been working on this for several years now, it is encouraging that APIs are now available to paying customers.

8. Legacy networks and applications are disappearing, freeing up resources for operators.???

9. By the end of 2024, 3G will be nearly gone in the UK ( Virgin Media O2 has announced it will sunset 3G in 2025 ). In the US, 3G has already been fully shut down .

10. FTTP investment across the globe remains high and has the potential to grow in 2024?

11. The PON fibre market remains robust – revenue was 27% higher in 1H23 than in 1H20?

12. FTTP coverage has improved substantially in all regions and there is still significant room for growth?

13. FTTP has substantially lower fault and truck roll rates than copper-based technologies: approximately half those seen on copper networks, according to operators such as Openreach and Verizon .??

14. Migration from copper to FTTP will generate noteworthy opex savings, even before final copper decommissioning takes place, as Chorus NZ Limited has demonstrated.??

15. Comcast has been the only operator to announce built-in support for Matter (introduced by the Connectivity Standards Alliance to support smart home interoperability issues), but Omdia expects other telcos will follow this trend in 2024. This could help CSPs to capitalise on consumer IoT opportunities.??

16. 44% of customers still prefer to buy handsets and devices in-store, at telco stores.?

17. There are opportunities for telcos to improve the telco store experience by considering the following: while 59% visit telco stores to interact with a human agent in person; the same percentage of customers like to participate in immersive shopping experiences using AR/VR.?

18. 苹果 has announced plans to use rich communication services (RCS) from 2024, potentially ending the green ‘V’ blue bubble dispute.?

19. Across Europe some mature AltNets have achieved take up rates of 50%. The key factors for this include the rollout advantage for early movers (particularly in rural areas), plus utilising a wide range of business models across different geotypes.?

20. And beyond 2024, the future looks bright too: by 2027 – it is expected that there will be 243 million new fixed connections, 43.7 billion more connected devices and 32% of the global population will be connected.??

This article features research from Omdia analysts Peter Boyland William Thompson-Hare Camille Mendler Ronan De Renesse Dario Talmesio Stephen Wilson and Mariana Zamoszczyk . It is based on a series of presentations during an event held by Omdia in London, in December 2023.??

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