Mobile voice revenue will drop to $208 billion (€186 billion) by 2024 from $381 billion (€340 billion) in 2019, as users continue to prefer more flexible, free over-the-top (OTT) services.
This is according to Juniper Research’s Mobile Voice: Emerging Opportunities for Operators & Vendors 2019-2024 report forecasts that operator voice revenue will decline by 45% over the next five years, in the face of an 88% increase in the total number of third-party OTT mobile voice over IP (mVoIP) users. OTT providers are expected to amass up to 4.5 billion users by 2024.
Juniper Research urges operators to invest in AI-enabled communications platforms that facilitate competitive voice service delivery.
Plugging the gap
There is some good news, though. The research anticipates that improved 4G coverage and a growing number of capable devices will boost the number of mobile video call users, and that this will partially offset voice revenue losses.
The study forecasts that ViLTE (video over LTE) operator revenue will exceed $33 billion (€29.5 billion) by 2024. Further, Juniper finds that as 5G rolls out, it will generate new revenue streams for operators by enabling innovative use cases for voice over LTE (VoLTE) and ViLTE. The report notes that high data throughput and low latency will propel emerging services such as real-time interaction (RTI), remote control and voice over 5G (Vo5G), which will find wide application across a range of industries.
Tapping Vo5G
The research urges operators to accelerate VoLTE launches in order to benefit from emerging Vo5G services. The study notes that establishing a 5G-enabled IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) infrastructure for VoLTE will provide a “pivotal foundation” for future voice services rollouts, which operators can monetise.