Research from Ovum predicts communication companies will spend $2 trillion on capital expenditure between 2014-2019
Capital expenditure of communications providers reached $346 billion (£220 billion) during 2014, according to research from analysts Ovum, with mobile operators making up 59 per cent of the total.
Capex for mobile companies was $214 billion (£136 billion) globally while fixed line operators invested $132 billion (£90.2 billion) accounting for the other 41 per cent of the total.
The research also predicted how much CSPs will invest in the coming years. Ovum expects flat capex as growth in 2015, as mobile operator spending offsets declines in fixed line investment. Ovum expects capex in 2016 and 2017 to be weak, but to start growing again in 2018-2019 driven by a new wave of fixed broadband, data centre, and mobile broadband upgrades.
Ovum principle network infrastructure analyst Matt Walker said in a statement: “Communications service providers (CSPs) have invested fairly heavily in 2013–2014 across both fixed and mobile networks to support broadband rollouts.”
“Capacity will be absorbed, and technology and feature upgrades will drive capex back up to about $354 billion by 2019. Over the entire 2014–2019 forecast period, CSP capex will total over $2 trillion.”
