In the second quarter of 2013, U.S. mobile service providers added an aggregate net new 139,000 connections, down about 95 percent from the second quarter of 2012.It might not yet be possible to say we are at "peak mobile," in terms of the market top in terms of subscribers, but we are getting close.
Of course, mobile execs have seen this coming for a long time, so it is not a shock nor a surprise. As execs in the video entertainment and fixed network telecom business learned years ago, markets saturate.
When that happens, revenue growth becomes largely unhinged from growth of "lines" or "subscribers." You start hearing terms such as "revenue units." The reason is drop dead simple: when markets saturate, service providers cannot grow by adding subscriber units.
Instead, they have to start selling more things to a fixed or declining number of subscriber or customer accounts.
If you want to know why mobile service providers globally are investing in mobile payments, machine to machine services, connected car, mobile commerce, mobile app, home security or mobile advertising initiatives, as well as gearing up for a wave of consolidation, the end of subscriber-driven growth is the reason.
The almost non-existent subscriber growth is not a shock or a surprise. It has been coming for some time, and service providers had begun a serious movement to new revenue sources some time ago.
1 comment:
Its real awesome post It was really helpful to me.
Post a Comment