News

Mobile VoIP

16/10/2009
IDATE forecasts for the end of 2014, 75 million subscribers in the US, UK, Germany and France
Mobile VoIP

“Mobile VoIP is often perceived as a threat to mobile network operators, eating into their voice revenues as well as reducing them to mere “dumb pipes”. It has also been perceived as “the next big thing” for a while now in the mobile market”, says Soichi Nakajima, project Leader of the report.

This latest report, published by IDATE, will look at the myths and realities of mobile VoIP, the potential and threats of managed VoIP, and draw mobile VoIP penetration forecasts.


Key Findings

• In most cases, over-the-top mobile VoIP pricing is only attractive for international calls.

• Skype dominates the independent “cheap calls” VoIP market. Other independent players bundle Skype together with their own differentiated value to survive in the market.

• Google is the latest big name to enter the mobile VoIP field, and has the potential to disrupt the market with its unified communications approach and huge brand power.

• Currently, tier 1 MNOs are exploring possible revenue models around VoIP, or are still investigating how to profitably offer it on a large scale with acceptable QoS; whereas challengers are deploying VoIP as a means of competitive differentiation.

• It is only a matter of time before operators start to offer managed mobile VoIP. This will first manifest itself in the form of partnerships, followed by purely operator solutions.

• The following are the key factors for mobile VoIP take-off: competitiveness of the mobile market; uptake of fixed VoIP; penetration of unlimited data plans for mobile handsets; compatible handset availability; and MNO partnerships with third-party applications.

• There is potential to turn managed VoIP into increased data revenue, outweighing the loss in voice revenue, by taking elements from the success seen in fixed VoIP.


IDATE Forecasts

IDATE defines a mobile VoIP user as a user who uses a VoIP application on a mobile handset over a wireless carrier network, at least once a month. Based on this definition, IDATE predicts that the UK will be the early adopters, while France will be slow to take off to start with but accelerate from 2013.

The percentages of mobile VoIP users over the total number of mobile subscribers could reach 13% for the analyzed countries. Finally, converting the above percentages into user numbers, IDATE forecasts for the end of 2014, 75 million mobile VoIP users in the US, UK, Germany and France.