Survey: Mobile Sector Expects to Buck Economic Trend in 2009

New research, commissioned by OSS vendor, Comptel has found that mobile service providers are surprisingly upbeat about the mobile sector's potential in the year ahead. The research found that over half expect mobile operators to be less affected than the wider economy and the majority think that mobile operators face less of a challenge than service providers from other sectors of the communications industry.

The survey, carried out by independent research firm Vanson Bourne, polled twenty-five mobile service providers from across the globe on their expectations for the industry's economic performance, what they saw as key immediate challenges and their network and OSS investment intentions in 2009. When broken down by region, the research revealed that the Asia Pacific and Middle East are the most optimistic, with 100 percent of the region's mobile operators surveyed stating that they saw themselves being affected less severely than the wider economy.

While US mobile operators indicated that they see themselves as facing less of a challenge overall than other SPs, the region was unique in that 67 percent of US mobile operators questioned expect their market to shrink in 2009. European mobile operators in the UK and Germany also saw potential for market shrinkage although the majority expected the market to remain static.

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) was still seen as the biggest challenge facing mobile operators in 2009, but reducing the cost of service deployment and delivering more advanced services were seen as the next biggest challenges. A recent study of the same base of mobile operators, conducted by Comptel in August 2008, found that at that time, 41 percent of the operators polled stated their OSS was ‘somewhat' ready for FMC, and 39 percent admitted to being completely unprepared for FMC.

"The current economic downturn has really forced mobile operators to focus on how OSS can improve their competiveness and efficiency, regardless of their market situation. In emerging markets, the focus is on innovation, diversification and more rapidly delivering lifestyle services, while in established markets the emphasis is on optimizing processes to improve efficiency and reducing the overall cost of service deployment," said Arnhild Schia, senior vice president, strategic marketing at Comptel.

The study found that the majority of operators in the emerging markets of the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions would focus mainly on growing the number and diversity of services they offer in 2009, while in the established markets, the focus of operators would be mostly on optimising processes to improve efficiency. An overwhelming 80 percent of operators worldwide cited revenue assurance processes as the key to addressing these challenges in the year ahead.

"OSS investment is really the key to helping operators improve their agility and their efficiency, while driving their revenue assurance objectives," continued Schia.

Posted to the site on 13th February 2009