Six Trends That Will Define the Future of Telecoms

Mobile business and Cloud opportunities are profit avenues for telecoms in the near future – emphasized Rolf Meakin, a partner at PwC’s consulting group at today’s conference on trends in communications and media, co-organized by Lider and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Mobile telephony is changing extremely quickly, and the number of smartphone users is increasing, with the figure expected to reach 700 million users by next year. This opens up opportunities for operators but also leaves them vulnerable to competitors from other areas. For this reason, Meakin highlighted six trends, underscoring two as potential sources of additional profit and growth for telecoms: Cloud services and mobile business.

The six trends that will most significantly impact the telecommunications sector are geopolitical changes, the rise of the Facebook generation, the growth of mobile business, the offering of the next generation of Cloud, the dominance of the digital ecosystem, and the provision of even faster internet.

– Currently, $9 billion is spent on mobile marketing, and in three years, this amount is expected to be around $23 billion. Mobile phones could replace wallets in the future, and this has already begun today with NFC technology. Additionally, the value of the mobile payment market will triple in three years. It is up to telecoms to decide on the model they will offer to users. Whether it will be payment combined with ticket purchases and various vouchers or whether they will choose to combine it with mobile marketing is their choice – said Meakin.
As an example, he highlighted British telecom operators (Vodafone, EE, and O2) who have joined forces to create the Weve platform, which they will use to present themselves to clients in order to be more competitive in the new market.
– They realized that they must make a move in this new market for them. After receiving approval from Brussels, they now present themselves to clients together. This makes them more competitive and gives them an advantage over Google or PayPal. Other telecoms could apply this formula, collaborating at that level, but the battle for the customer remains – believes Meakin.
Regarding Cloud services, those who offer a secure and stable service will profit the most. Companies have already started using this service, but according to PwC research, in the next three years, more than half of companies will almost completely transfer their business to the ‘cloud’.

Dejan Ljuština, who delivered a lecture instead of Marcel Fenez, who was stuck in air traffic, presented trends in the media to the participants. According to forecasts, media will grow in the next three years. The slowest in North America and Europe, and the fastest in the so-called golden countries, which include the countries of the Arab Spring and parts of Asia. With the growth of democracy in the countries of the Arab Spring, space opens up for media growth, and what is important for all is the projected average growth of advertising by 6.4 percent. Naturally, advertising on the internet, video games, and television will grow the most. What is particularly interesting is that according to forecasts, by 2016, digital and television advertising will equalize.
– After years of decline, growth in newspapers will finally occur. It won’t be significant, but the trend will finally change. The readership of newspapers, when considering their online editions, is increasing, but the problem is how to monetize it, as advertisers still do not trust that segment – believes Ljuština.
Regarding television, which many believed would be destroyed by the strengthening of the internet and digital media, the opposite has happened, and viewership is increasing. However, the change is that viewers are now watching content that is offered to them and are choosing to watch something based on recommendations on social media and the internet. More and more users are watching television via smart mobile phones, and media must adapt to these changes. In the second part of the conference, there will be a round table on the topic ‘Development of the Telecommunications, Media, and Technology Sector in Croatia and the Region,’ featuring Ivica Mudrinić, CEO of HT, Mladen Pejković, CEO of VIPnet, Gordana Kovačević, CEO of Ericsson Nikola Tesla, the new director of HRT, Goran Radman, and Dejan Ljuština, a telecommunications sector expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers.