Brussels, 05/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - Mobility, the “cloud” and “big data” are the key challenges that will continue to crystallise the debates among the main global stakeholders in the digital ecosystem, said telecommunications experts, IDATE, at the publication event of its 14th Digiworld annual. IDATE emphasises that, at a European level, one major challenge relates to the long journey that “still lies ahead for Europe in its bid to achieve a single telecommunications market”.
Although there was a slight uptick in growth in 2013 in all sectors (telecoms, media and technology): 3.2%, generating close to €3,500 billion in revenue, Europe has been bucking this tend with a growth rate that has been shrinking for the past five years. In 2013, it was the emerging economies that helped growth and made a substantial contribution of 80%. North America (+2.8%) is doing better than Europe (-0.8%).
To ensure the European market's future, it will be essential to see whether the trend towards consolidation that is just beginning to emerge will help to meet the three main challenges: 1) the ability to escape the price wars that threaten telecoms' ability to invest in new generation infrastructure; 2) a single European telecoms market, which includes cross-border deals and the creation of truly pan-European players; 3) achievement of the margins and critical mass needed to reinvent the telecoms business model, in an environment being dictated by the powerful internet companies that provide telecommunications services, such as SMS, MMS, voice, videos, texts, pictures, etc., and which will partly or totally replace the services provided by the incumbent operators. (IL)