Broadly speaking, telecom service providers have two ways of connecting traffic to a destination telco.
They can either connect directly with the destination carrier or route traffic to a wholesale carrier that connects to a destination telco.
Although many retail service providers, such as mobile operators, MVNOs, and cable broadband providers, rely heavily on wholesale carriers to transport and terminate their customers’ international calls, wholesale revenues are down 11% from ten years ago.
Let’s take a moment to dive in a bit and see what’s going on.
A few years ago, one could say that traffic to mobile phones in emerging markets had driven international wholesale market growth.
No longer.
Wholesale Revenues by Market Type, 2013 and 2023
-1.png?width=775&height=326&name=Copyright_TeleGeography_tg_pr_advanced_vs_emerging_revs_toggle%20(3)-1.png)
Wholesale Traffic by Market Type, 2013 and 2023
-1.png?width=775&height=325&name=Copyright_TeleGeography_tg_pr_advanced_vs_emerging_revs_toggle%20(4)-1.png)
Notes: Advanced markets are defined as those of the upper 30th percentile of countries as ranked by GDP per capita in 2023. Emerging markets are those of countries in the lower 70th percentile. World and regional totals exclude countries with extremely low traffic volumes. Source: © 2024 TeleGeography
It’s plain as day that revenues to fixed lines in both advanced and emerging economies have collapsed.
At the same time, revenues from calls to mobiles in all markets have stagnated over the past ten years at around $11.5 billion.
Who’s Carrying This Traffic?
Find out in our new International Voice Report Executive Summary.
This analysis covers international call traffic, cross-border OTT traffic, wholesale revenues and traffic, traffic volumes of major carriers, and more.
