Worldwide Spending on Telecom, Pay TV to Grow By Nearly 2 Percent in 2018, IDC Says

Worldwide spending on Telecom Services and Pay TV Services is forecast to reach nearly $1.7 billion in 2017, an increase of 1.7 percent over 2016, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Telecom Services Database. IDC expects worldwide spending on Telecom and Pay TV services to grow 2 percent year over year and surpass $1.7 billion in 2018.

The largest segment of the market is Mobile which represents 52 percent of the total market in 2017. The Mobile market is expected to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2 percent over the 2017-2021 forecast period. The market will be driven by the growth in mobile data usage and M2M applications, which is offsetting declines in spending on mobile voice and messaging services. Fixed Data service spending represents 21% of the total market in 2017 and that is set to grow by a CAGR of 4% driven by the need for higher bandwidth services.

The Pay TV services market, which consists of Cable, Satellite, Internet protocol (IP), and Digital Terrestrial TV services, will remain flat over the five-year forecast period. However, these services are an increasingly important part of the multi-play offerings of telecom providers across the world. Spending on multi-play services is forecast to increase by 9 percent in 2017 and by 7 percent in 2018.

Spending on Fixed Voice services, however, will experience a decline over the forecast period – a CAGR of -6 percent -- and will represent less than 10 percent of the total market by 2021. Rapidly declining TDM Voice revenues are not being offset by the increase in IP Voice.

(For more information visit https://www.idc.com).