Mobile data roaming traffic generated by consumer and IoT devices reached 737 Petabytes in 2019, according to Kaleido Intelligence. This is forecast to reach 2,000 Petabytes in 2024, representing an average annual growth of 22% over the period, adds the research group.
Driven by the significant increase in roaming data traffic across key regions including Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Kaleido predicts that consumer inbound wholesale roaming revenues will reach $16 billion in 2024, with IoT adding a further $5.7 billion.
“Roam-Like-At-Home will continue to be the most important revenue driver, followed by the introduction of IoT and 5G roaming services,” Nitin Bhas, chief of Strategy & Insights at Kaleido Intelligence said. “However, the challenge here is to identify and predict what data roaming services will look like in three3 years time; i.e. IoT and 5G use cases that will have an impact – anything from connected cars to high-speed video services.”
Key findings from Kaleido Intelligence’s operator survey conducted in H2-2019 included:
° Ensuring a premium customer experience from a 4G/5G roaming perspective was found to be the biggest challenge by participants.
° Real-time business analytics and intelligence were found to be the most popular and immediate technical requirement.
° 67% of the global operators surveyed reported over 5% increase in traffic in 2019; in comparison, 11% reported between 1-5% increase.
