Mobile CAPEX is expected to grow by more than 4% year over year in 2010, after contracting by 2.7% in 2009, according to ABI Research.
The study found that the growth in CAPEX is driven by investments in 3.5G technologies such as HSPA and HSPA+, along with the rollout of 4G LTE networks by large operators such Verizon Wireless and Telia Sonera.
The firm said that the fastest growth in capital expenditure is expected to be in South America, with a CAGR of 10% between 2009 and 2015.
Globally, mobile service revenues rose by 5.9% year over year between third quarter of 2009 and third quarter of 2008. The growth was mainly driven by 8.8% growth of service revenues in North America in the same period.
According to ABI Research, markets such as North America and Western Europe saw more than 17% year over year growth in mobile internet revenues and the trend is expected to continue into 2010. Smartphone sales were brisk in 2009, even as the overall shipment of handsets dropped.
Bhavya Khanna, analyst at ABI Research, said: “The rapid adoption of smartphones will drive service revenue growth in 2010, as more consumers adopt data plans to take advantage of their handsets’ features.”
Stuart Carlaw, vice president and CRO, said: “The growing popularity of Internet-capable handsets will drive the increasing adoption of mobile data among consumers. ABI Research forecasts mobile Internet service revenues to grow at a CAGR of 9.4% between 2009 and 2015.”
