Broadband, video, and mobile services fuel residential services market

CAMPBELL, USA: Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its Residential Voice, Data, and Video Services in North America market share and forecast report.

Diane Myers, Infonetics Research's directing analyst for service provider VoIP and IMS, advises: "The residential services market is in rapid transition. The decline of traditional fixed-line voice service and the rise of broadband access, video, and mobile data is speeding up. PC-based mobile broadband subscribers will surpass all other types of Internet access subscribers by 2013.

"If telecom operators aren't able to provide competitive mobile services, they will be at a significant disadvantage. Now that residential voice and Internet services are no longer tied to a physical household, operators can (and should) customize services for individual members of a household and compete on a nationwide basis versus a specific fixed territory."

Market highlights
* The residential services market in North America, which comprises voice, video, and Internet access services, held steady during the economic downturn, maintaining $240 billion in 2009

* Service provider revenue from voice services (including VoIP and mobile voice) decreased 5 percent in 2009, while broadband access and video service revenue increased 5 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

* Infonetics Research forecasts the North American residential voice, video and Internet access services market to grow to $271 billion by 2014.

* Broadband access is the true growth engine for residential services, with annual revenue for North American service providers expected to grow at a 13 percent CAGR from 2009 to 2014, driven by both fixed and mobile broadband solutions.

* In 2009, 70 percent of all North American voice subscribers were mobile; by 2014, that number will grow as an increasing number of consumers go mobile-only.

* 55 percent of all residential mobile subscribers in North America are customers of either AT&T or Verizon.

* The battle between cable operators and satellite providers for video services continues, with the dominating cable operators losing some revenue market share to satellite (DBS) and telco IPTV providers in 2009.

* Comcast leads in North American residential video service revenue share, and DirecTV and Dish Network jumped ahead of Time Warner Cable in 2009

* Video services represent significant future revenue for service providers, but it comes at a high cost of programming and lower margins than voice services.