Mobile markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are set to see a quadrupling of mobile broadband revenues by 2014, according to a new report from Onda Analytics. While growth in handset-based revenues will be slow, mobile broadband is set to start to have a major impact on operators’ financials, with over 20 million subscribers in the region forecast by 2014.
By 2014, over 60% of mobile broadband revenue will be generated by just four countries: Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Though these countries represent only 40% of the region’s population, according to report author, Tom Harden, “poor competition from fixed services, a desire by some regional operators to showcase advanced services and strategies by late entrants to focus on data services are among the reasons mobile broadband will succeed in certain countries”.
Onda Analytics’ latest report, MENA telecoms investment review and forecasts 2010-2014, assesses the mobile telecoms markets across the region, providing full forecasts for mobile subscribers and revenue in the region. Operators have seen high mobile subscriber growth in recent years, increasing at an average of 30% per annum since 2006 to 304 million subscribers by 2009.
The report considers future investment plans by operators, with a series of operator and regulator interviews revealing plans for new networks based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology providing high-speed mobile broadband connections. It also considers several opportunities for investment, pinpointing a number of prospects in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon. It also includes separate forecasts for key KPIs for 18 countries in the region: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen
