2014 Trends

The two major events in the telecoms market this year are likely to be the creation of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network and further development of Tele2 in Russia.

In the largest market, South Africa, we have seen several trends.

Before investing in emerging markets, MTN considers a combination of factors including mobile penetration levels, population size, the economic growth of a country and the competitive landscape.

2014 will be the year that operators trade gut and intuition for a new way of marketing – one that relies on big data analytics and science. 

While we’re no doubt well into the global data boom, the number of sources generating this fast-growing volume of data continues to multiply exponentially.

We expect to see significant growth in OTN (optical transport network) technology across all regions of the developing world, mainly because of the reliance on mobile infrastructure vs. traditional telecommunications services.

In 2014, eCommerce will finally have an impact on the buying and selling of international communications services.

In emerging markets, investments in LTE networks will continue.

The world is more connected now than ever before. As more devices are connected on the internet, there is a distinct need for innovative and flexible data solutions.

In some African nations, three times as many people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water. A shocking statistic but it shows how important mobile communications are.

Operators are already spending billions on beefing up capacity to handle the tremendous increase in video and data traffic, but Google and Facebook are walking away with all the revenue.

A key investment requirement remains on the terrestrial fibre side, specifically fibre backhaul, linking the land-locked countries in Africa to the coastal countries and the undersea cable landing stations.

The explosion of mobile data demand has triggered operators to make global investments to upgrade existing 3G networks and to build 4G infrastructure.

The World Bank has a list of 331 indicators on which they measure the 'health' of a country.

We expect to see a significant increase in the number of operators in Africa rolling out VoIP services during 2014 as fibre continues to creep inland and the reliability, QoS and CAPEX issues previously associated with VoIP have all been resolved by vendors and operators working together.

2014 will continue to be a year of 3G deployments and expansion in emerging markets, with the start of initial LTE deployments.

We believe that 2014 will be the year for emerging markets and that Africa’s growth prospects, in particular, are bright indeed, especially in the Mobile Financial Services (MFS) sector.

Two related, if not complementary trends characterise telecoms today in developing markets.

In the mobile industry, and especially in emerging markets, 2014 will largely see the continuation and acceleration of trends from the previous year: the unstoppable expansion of mobile data networks, increased competition in the low- to mid-range smartphone market, further innovation in the mobile money and mobile banking segments, and growing importance of mobile devices in everyday life, worldwide.

As a satellite communications innovator, we think there are a variety of applications worthy of investment, to meet demands for communications, entertainment, mobility, and convenience.

 I believe investments in system-level vectoring will continue to be on many emerging markets agenda for 2014.

Over-the-top content, VoIP over 3G, location-based services and gaming should see a strong year in many emerging markets.

After years of heavy Capital Investment on Infrastructure, customer acquisition and unsustainable price wars, priority is shifting in 2014 towards Business Optimisation to ensure profitability.

The tension within IT on moving to the cloud will resolve as organisations recognise that a hybrid cloud model is needed to serve their application portfolio.

2014 is set to be a watershed year for contextual marketing. We will see service providers continuously engaging with customers and creating long-term goals of customer satisfaction and improving customer loyalty over a number of years.

Over-the-Top (OTT) services should experience strong growth in many emerging markets this year.

This year will be marked by the continuing tide of digital disruption and an accelerating pace of change in the telecom industry. In fact, potentially more of an acceleration than we’ve seen in the past.

Emerging markets are beginning to realize the benefits of IP-centric networks. A single IP network can transport multiple services, including voice, data, and the killer application, video.

Supporting ever-increasing consumer demand for fast and reliable mobile data access, service providers in developing markets are investing heavily in 4G/LTE. Operators continue to focus on ways to generate revenue growth from these significant investments.

Emerging markets are next in line for a data boom, but infrastructure is a big challenge.

Communications service providers (CSPs) in emerging markets achieved double-digit growth in recent years but are facing the ARPU pressures and slowing growth experienced by mature markets over the same timeframe.

South America is experiencing strong growth in the telecoms space, making it the top priority for investment in emerging markets, for 2014.

All mobile network operators face the challenge of improving their customer service without driving up OPEX, but for those in emerging markets this is an even greater priority since customers may be less comfortable with mobile technology than those in more established markets.