Telecom Lead India: Telecom service provider Capex is expected to grow 4 percent in 2012 led by Asia and North America.
Telecom Capex increase in 2012 is being driven primarily by video and wireless infrastructure investments.
This is a big news for telecom equipment vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks, Samsung, ZTE, etc.
Global service provider revenue will reach $1.9 trillion in 2012, up 4 percent from 2011.
While incumbent carrier Capex on the whole is flat to slightly down this year, independent wireless operators, competitive operators, and cable operators are increasing Capex, led by the independent wireless operators, increasing Capex 12 percent this year.
Spending on every type of telecom equipment except optical and TDM voice will be up this year.
The major areas of investment through 2015 include fiber-based wireline broadband, 2G mobile network capacity expansion, 2G migration to 3G, and migration to LTE projects.
Asia Pacific will account for about 1/3 of global service provider revenue by 2016, propelled by China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator by revenue and subscribers.
Wireless pure-play operators will account for nearly 1/3 of all telecom Capex by 2016, driven by 3G and LTE rollouts in China, India, and Africa.
“2013 is looking bright for all regions,” says Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research.
Capex in 2013 and 2014 will be positive as big operators such as AT&T and Deutsche Telekom and several regional players are investing in network.
Deutsche Telekom’s €30-billion 3-year investment plan announced this month will help lead a return to investments in the EMEA region.
Mobile service providers in Europe have no choice but to invest in their networks now. Some European operators have been restricting Capex for so many years that they are experiencing network outages, unable to handle the exploding traffic. There is demand for telecom services everywhere, particularly for mobile broadband.
