Over-the-top players like WhatsApp, Facebook and Skype will cost mobile operators an estimated $14 billion in lost revenues this year. And it will be 26% more from 2013, according to a study of Juniper Research. It has detected that in a number of markets the mobile voice revenues had fallen bellow 60% of their value five years’ ago. The combination of IM, VoIP and social media are blamed for not only in lost revenues but adding costs due to the scale of signaling traffic.
It suggests the operators to optimize their networks. Otherwise, the delivery costs of mobile data will become thrice expensive during next three years. Meanwhile, operators are also exploring new revenue streams – such as M2M and mobile money. It can deliver cumulative revenues to operators in excess of $66 billion over the next five years. It also recommends the operators to implement direct carrier billing and enhance their analytics packages to monetize consumer big data.
What’s the bottom line? Innovate or die but don’t nag. Read Juniper’s press release.
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