Pay-TV Services More Important to Telecom Providers as Voice Spending Drops, Says IDC
Mobile is driving most global spending on telecom services and pay-TV services, a segment expected to reach nearly $1.7 trillion this year, IDC reported Monday. Mobile spending, projected to be 52 percent of the total market in 2017, is forecast…
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to have a 2 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2021, driven by growth in mobile data usage and machine-to-machine applications, offsetting spending declines in mobile voice and messaging services, IDC said. Fixed data service spending, at 21 percent of spending this year, is seen growing by a 4 percent CAGR over the period, driven by higher-bandwidth services. Spending on pay-TV services -- cable, satellite, internet protocol and digital terrestrial -- is projected to be flat over the five-year period, but they're an increasingly important part of the multiplay offerings of telecom providers worldwide, IDC said, with spending forecast to grow 9 percent this year and 7 percent in 2018. Spending on fixed voice services, meanwhile, will drop at a 6 percent compound annual growth rate over the forecast period, to less than 10 percent of the total market by 2021. An increase in IP voice isn't offsetting "rapidly declining” time-division multiplexing voice revenue, it said.