Metrics 2.0: Wireline and Mobile Telecom Capex to Surpass $200 billion Mark in 2006

Publicly owned wireline and mobile telecom service providers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific spent a combined $192.8 billion on capital expenditures in 2005, and are projected to increase their capex by 5% to $203.1 billion in 2006, according to Infonetics Research.

Global Public Telcos Capex
	Capex Growth 2005- 2006	Revenue Growth 2005- 2006	Opex/Revenue Ratio 2006
North America	6%	4%	62%
Europe	9%	4%	67%
Asia pacific	5%	3%	69%
Source: Infonetics Research, Nov 2006

Voice network spending is trending up as a percentage of capex due to broadband, VoIP, and wireless network spending, as well as the move to IP/MPLS/Ethernet networks, says Infonetics.

Opex-to-revenue ratios are higher in Asia and Europe than in North America, probably due to the rapid consolidation among US telcos: in just 2 years, AT&T, BellSouth, Cingular, MCI, SBC, and Verizon have become 2 companies - AT&T and Verizon.

Telcos consolidation in turn forced tier 1 vendors to consolidate as well (Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson-Marconi, and Nokia-Siemens), who together will see more than $60 billion in annual revenue in 2006.

Infonetics’ capex reports provide revenue, opex, capex, ARPU, subscriber, and demographic data for all public wireline and mobile carriers headquartered in North America, Europe , and Asia Pacific. Data is presented by region, by service provider type, and by individual service provider. Access lines and subscribers (DSL , cable broadband, VoIP, IPTV, PON/FTTH, and mobile) are tracked by quarter per service provider and per region.

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Wireline and Mobile Telecom Capex to Surpass $200 billion Mark in 2006