Telecom Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030

Major companies in the telecom market include AT&T; Apple; Verizon Communications Inc; China Mobile Ltd and Samsung.

The global telecom market is expected to grow from $2555.45 billion in 2020 to $2713.53 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.2%. The growth is mainly due to the companies rearranging their operations and recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures involving social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities that resulted in operational challenges. The market is expected to reach $3461.03 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 6%.

The telecom market consists of sales of telecom goods and services by entities (organizations, sole traders and partnerships) that provide communication hardware equipment for the transmission of voice, data, text and video. The telecoms market also includes manufacturers’ sales of goods such as GPS equipment, cellular telephones and switching equipment. The telecom market is segmented into wireless telecommunication carriers; wired telecommunications carriers; communications hardware and satellite & telecommunication resellers.

Asia Pacific was the largest region in the global telecom market, accounting for 34% of the market in 2020. North America was the second largest region accounting for 32% of the global telecom market. Africa was the smallest region in the global telecom market.

Internet TV is gaining acceptance and being preferred by customers in developed and developing markets. The traditional pay-TV industry has been facing severe competition from online video streaming service providers. The low-cost video streaming service providers are threatening the pay-TV business model and forcing traditional pay-TV service providers to offer internet TV services to their subscribers. For example, in June 2018, AT&T, after its acquisition of Time Warner, announced a launch of a live TV streaming platform, WatchTV, which was a lower cost alternative to AT&T’s DirecTV Now.

The telecom industry involved in the provision of national networks across the world is increasingly targeted by hackers, exposing various security issues. The hackers’ main aim is to steal valuable information and use it in their own favor. Despite various measures taken by many national governments resorting to stricter regulatory norms for foreign hardware manufacturers, issues concerning national security continue to rise. The extreme cases of the surveillance include banning the Huawei Company by the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK governments to participate in the provision of 5G network hardware due to security concerns, which stemmed from the Chinese government's use of Huawei's products to spy on people around the world. Hence, these security issues leading to the ban of foreign manufacturers are expected to hinder the growth of the communications hardware in the forecast period, a major segment within the telecom market.

IoT technology adoption by manufacturing and transportation services companies is driving the telecom market in the forecast period. IoT is a network of physical objects such as devices, vehicles, buildings and other items which are embedded with electronics, software, sensors and network connectivity enable these objects to collect and exchange data. For instance, Microsoft and Rolls-Royce have announced a partnership centering on future Rolls-Royce intelligent engines, which will integrate Microsoft Suite into its service solutions to expand its digital capabilities. Smart Grid encompasses inter related technologies entering public use to manage electricity consumption. Thus, IoT technology adoption is expected to expand the demand for telecom services.