How telcos are pushing into content

As telcos struggle to generate revenues from new service offerings to offset the commoditisation of their traditional communications services, video looks highly attractive.

After all, the revenue-generating opportunity is significant – in 2017, the 50 largest telco video operator groups generated an estimated US$89.3bn in video revenue, up 8% from US$82.7bn in 2016, according to IHS Markit’s ‘Video as a Core Service for Telcos’ report 2018. Between them, these 50 telcos account for more than 300 million video subscriptions, says the report.

These numbers seem large but, in telco terms, they are not. The Economist Intelligence Unit projects total telecoms revenue in the 60 biggest global markets of US$1.2tn for 2018 and the number of mobile subscribers alone is set to exceed 6.3bn people this year.

However, that revenue projection represents a fall of…