Telecom Lead Asia: Mobile operator capital infrastructure expenditure (Capex) in 2013 is likely to decrease by 7 percent to $98.6 billion.
This will be a bad news for telecom equipment vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens, Huawei, ZTE, Cisco, Samsung, etc.
But in 2014, telecom service provider will spend more on LTE will see a better Capex.
The commitments to LTE from an ever-expanding list of countries should substantially boost overall mobile carrier Capex, by 6 percent, to $104.5 billion in 2014, according to ABI Research.
Worldwide mobile operator capital infrastructure expenditure in 2013 will experience opposing forces from different regional markets.
In North America, mobile carrier Capex will grow 2.1 percent to US$ 13.4 billion as the accelerated LTE equipment spend programs from AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, etc. concentrate spending in 2013.
In Western Europe, capital expenditure will contract -1.1 percent, as maturing networks, and economic uncertainty, trim Capex.
Asia-Pacific has its LTE hotspots. Korea and Japan are rapidly acquiring LTE subscribers; China has yet to award LTE licenses, while SE Asia countries are starting to demonstrate some traction in LTE. India had awarded some LTE-TDD licenses in early 2012 but a lack of affordable LTE-TDD capable handsets, and high tariffs, has kept Indian LTE-TDD subscriber adoptions in check.
ABI Research did not share the growth for Asia Pacific region.
“Eastern Europe should show reasonable growth (2.4 percent) in CapEx that reflects LTE coverage build-out by carriers, but also 3G capacity build-outs as 3G subscriber adoption has gone past 41 percent penetration for the region,” said Aditya Kaul, mobile infrastructure practice director.
Middle East, Africa, and Latin America will show some growth in capital expenditure of around 1 percent to 3 percent. Voice-centric coverage is largely complete in those regions. Some operators are addressing 3G in-fill and mobile data capacity challenges but there has not been the ‘data crunch’ as we have seen in developed markets.
