California: Telecom operator mobile data roaming revenue will reach over $42 billion by 2018, Juniper Research has said.
Data roaming forms about 36 percent of the global mobile roaming revenues in 2013.
Juniper Research points out that total mobile roaming revenue will rise to nearly $90 billion by 2018 from $57 billion in 2014.
Mobile roaming revenue will represent over 8 percent of the global operator billed revenues by 2018, the report added.
These revenues will come mostly from increasing data usage, primarily from a reduction in roaming charges. Data roaming represented an estimated 36 percent of the global mobile roaming revenues in 2013.
Earlier, Cisco said mobile data traffic will increase nearly 11-fold over the next four years and reach an annual run rate of 190 exabytes by 2018, while 4G traffic will grow 18-fold from 2013 to 2018, at 78 percent CAGR.
Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast says the increase in mobile traffic is partly due to growth in the number of mobile Internet connections such as personal devices and machine-to-machine (M2M) connections, which will exceed 10 billion by 2018.
Juniper Research says the behavior of non-user segment or silent roamers, who do not use voice and data services while roaming, presents a huge challenge to operators both in terms of customer satisfaction and revenue expansion.
There is an opportunity to encourage non-data roamers to become data roamers. This can be done via package based roaming services where consumers are able to understand what they are paying for in a transparent and easier way.
