Over 1 billion people will be using ‘over the top’ mobile VoIP services by 2017, according to a new report from Juniper Research. That’s the equivalent of one out of every seven mobile phone subscribers worldwide. Over the top describes services that aren’t directly controlled by the network operator.
Mobile operators are now expected offer these OTT services themselves to compete with stand-alone rivals.
However, only a very small proportion of users are expected to pay for the services.
Anthony Cox, Associate Analyst with Juniper Research and author of the report, said “Many subscriber sign up to an OTT service without ever planning to pay a cent for it, and some industry players do not have a short-term revenue model at all.”
The report also notes that leading mobile VoIP players are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their service offerings, opening their Application Programming Interfaces to gain revenue via third parties.
The arrival of 4G is expected to give an extra push to mVoIP adoption but could also accelerate the decline in overall voice revenue.
[Whitepaper; report]