Tarifica’s Predictions for 2011

Date: January 10, 2011 | No Comments

Based on what we have seen during the last year, these are the trends to follow during 2011:

LTE roll outs will continue around the world but user adoption will have to wait for another year. All the big telcos are in trials or have already launched their LTE networks, but so far, they are only available for their use with dongles, since 4G smartphones aren’t commercially available yet. This year we will see the arrival of these devices, but we expect that prohibitive prices will delay the widespread adoption of 4G for at least another year.

The end of the “all-you–can-eat” era. The boom of smartphones has created capacity problems for carriers, who are struggling to maintain a reasonable QoS (Quality of Service) for their 3G networks as more and more customers make heavy use of their unlimited data connections. Many carriers removed unlimited data plans from their portfolios in 2010 and we expect that others will follow suit as the number of data users keeps growing.

The smartphone segment will continue growing quickly and Blackberry and Nokia will be forced to take drastic measures to remain competitive. Apple’s iPhone and Android phones are capitalizing on the explosive growth of the smartphone and we expect this trend to continue in 2011. While Nokia has struggled to compete effectively in this market, RIM has continued to grow their revenues, which are not at a record high. However, new smartphone users are opting for other platforms and some corporations (a segment where RIM was the clear leader) are already testing alternative devices. Therefore, we expect both companies to react to these threats with some change in their strategies.

Android will also take over the tablet market. We have witnessed how, during 2010, Android has closed the gap with Apple and now more Android phones than iPhones are sold. This year, Apple has revamped the tablet market with the iPad, and we expect other manufacturers to catch up in 2011, using Android powered tablets as they did in the smartphone segment.

Mobile payments: not yet. Even though manufacturers will continue placing NFC chips in their handsets and carriers will continue offering new alternatives for mobile payments, we don’t expect the trend toward electronic payments to become widely popular this year, mainly due to slow adoption among merchants.

VoIP will become part of carriers’ offers. We expect carriers to work with VoIP companies to offer alternatives for inexpensive international calls or videocalls, following deals such as those between Verizon and Skype or Telefonica and JahJah (a VoIP company fully owned by the Spanish carrier).

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