A new study from Juniper Research has found that operator-billed mobile voice revenues will fall from $354 billion (€303 billion) in 2018 to $197 billion (€169 billion) by 2023, an average annual decline of 10%.
The new research, Mobile Voice: Operator Strategies & Vendor Opportunities 2018-2023, identified a series of new opportunities which collectively would enable operators to sustain, or even increase, service revenues.
1) 5G and AI enabling new business models
Juniper identified 5G as critical for operators to slow declining voice revenues. It is expected that 5G connections will exceed 370 million by 2023; generating $88 billion (€75.32 billion) in operator-billed revenues. This will be over 50% of the anticipated voice revenue loss. It also argued that operators could generate additional revenue through support for new voice services; powered by technologies such as Google’s Duplex.
2) CPaaS (Communications Platforms-as-a-Service) disruption
In order to capitalise on revenue streams for emerging voice services, Juniper advises that operators must adopt new ecosystems of converged technologies, including voice, messaging and digital assistants such as Alexa. It predicted that operators will facilitate this by supporting the CPaaS model, whereby central management of communication is offered via a single platform.
3) The VoLTE opportunity
The research forecasts significant growth for OTT apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger. These apps will generate 15.7 trillion minutes of voice usage by 2023; equivalent to streaming 3.8 trillion music tracks.
In response, Juniper has urged operators to roll out voice technologies that offer superior benefits and are easily integrated into this CPaaS approach, such as VoLTE (Voice over LTE). Research author Sam Barker explained: “The OTT ecosystem is fragmented and, as a result, is unable to offer the same level of reach as operators. In order to maximise OTTs shortfall in this area, operators must adopt the CPaaS approach to win back traffic, thus minimising future shortfall in revenues”.
Juniper forecasts that VoLTE users will exceed the OTT voice app users for the first time in 2020, a year earlier than previously anticipated.
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