2013 is Darwinian tipping point year for telecoms industry: "Evolve or die!" according to IDATE research

IDATE, the No. 1 European Internet think tank, has published the 13th edition of its DigiWorld Yearbook, the Bible of the internet industry, and the de facto international source of reference for media, cloud, telecoms and internet industry trends. IDATE experts provide a concise and easy to read reference manual of the digital world, including key figures and a look at the latest innovations and key events that marked telecom, internet and media markets during 2012.

In the Yearbook preface, IDATE Institute Chairman, François Barrault, warns readers that the current state of affairs is not solely the result of the economic crisis, or Schumpeterian creative destruction. Especially at a time when `digital innovation remains an essential vehicle of productivity and a new growth cycle'. Which segues nicely into Barrault's announcement of the theme chosen for this year's DigiWorld Summit - taking place in Montpellier on 20 and 21 November 2013 - which will be the very timely titled: "Digital Gold Mines".

The Digital World growth dropped in 2012: Telcos advised: "Embrace innovation: Evolve or die!"
The Digital World has reported a sizeable drop in revenue during 2012, with growth decreasing to 2.7% after two steady years of recovery. Didier Pouillot, who heads up the DigiWorld YearBook project, says, `Equipment markets took a severe battering in 2012, with unit sales shrinking in virtually every category and pressure on prices almost wiping out any of the benefits of customer upgrades. The TV market was the hardest hit, which dragged the entire consumer electronics market down by 7%'.

But increased competition in the smartphone and tablet markets offers a glimmer of hope for the other two sectors. And although services markets can be said have weathered the storm, relatively speaking, it seems highly unlikely that they will find their way back to the growth rates of the mid-2000s, and even less to the double-digit increases of the late 1990s.

The sole exception here being internet (OTT) services which continue to grow by an average 20%. Pouillot expands "Telcos do have certain leverage to deal with this change, starting with creating more value from network access now that OTT services are increasing user consumption. NGN technologies allow telcos to increase speeds (`best network' strategy) and to introduce noticeable quality improvements, both of which can differentiate their offerings. But it is clear 2013 is a pivotal year and telcos must embrace innovation. A simple Darwinian case of evolve or die!"
IDATE is nevertheless keen to stress that digital innovation is far from exhausted. In his introduction IDATE CEO, Yves Gassot, reaffirms the three driving forces behind digital innovation today, namely mobile, cloud computing and big data. Gassot takes a look back at the headlines of recent months, and develops his analysis around several key points:
- the recession in Europe's telecom market strikes a contrast with the progress being made over in the United States, boosted by 4G rollouts and the prospect of a new round of mergers;
- the tremendous weight that the internet giants have acquired should not blind us to how fragile these positions really are (Apple), and the multifarious pressures they have to contend with.