Top Trends for 2023 every Telco Should Know

by Buana Sari Digital Marketer

If you are leading a telco, keeping up with the evolving trends of the digital ecosystem of telcos is of vital importance. MNO leaders are always busy solving pain points such as uplifting ARPU, cost minimization, enhancing customer lifetime value as they scale their business. Telecom operators are fighting out multiple challenges including cascading impact of the global pandemic, mounting inflationary pressures, data pressures, OTT intrusion, Russia-Ukraine war, service cannibalization, and many more.

The telecom industry in 2022 has made significant progress in augmenting its digitization journey despite the looming challenges in the dynamic technological and competitive landscape. Thanks to the big assistance and smart solutions provided by new state-of-the-art technologies like moLotus!

The global telco market grew from USD 2,642.14 Billion in 2021 to USD 2,879.75 Billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.0% (Source : Telecom Global Market Report 2022, The Business Research Company). Asia Pacific has emerged as the largest region in the telco market. North America was the second largest region accounting of the telco market. The regions covered in the telco market include Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and South America.

As we draw close to the end of the year 2022, a new set of opportunities as well as challenges come to the surface which can affect the future of telcos.

In light of these emerging challenges and opportunities, a list of prevailing trends will help you drive the telecom industry forward and improve the digital ecosystem gaining a competitive edge.

The trends are derived from the established industry reports and experiences of global MNOs including Indosat Ooredoo, Airtel, Vodafone, Celcom, Hutchinson and more. These trends will and should form the core of revenue management and cost optimization strategies for global telcos in the year 2023 and onwards.

To help you scale your revenues, here is a list of the most relevant industry trends that will guide you about the driving factors of the telecom industry in 2023:

Adoption of Mobile Technology

A new study from Juniper Research forecasts that total spend on digital advertising will reach USD 520 Billion by 2023; rising from USD 294 Billion in 2019. Digital ad spending is fuelled by the exponential spike in the consumption of mobile video content. Advancements in digital advertising are linked to the extensive adoption of mobile advertising platforms like moLotus, InMobi, Adcolony, etc. that enable advertisers to make real-time business decisions driving ad revenues via better campaign performances.

Telecom operators must tap into the growth opportunities provided by digital advertising in 2023, especially mobile advertising. There is tremendous opportunity here for telecom players to diversify their revenues by becoming a part of promising high-growth mobile marketing models.

Being a part of the mobile advertising ecosystem as impactful ad delivery channels empower telecom players to scale beyond their traditional services. moLotus mobile ad platform is all set to become the best revenue engine for telcos in 2023 because of the available opportunity to monetize valuable customer data with innovation, hyper-personalization, easy customer interaction, more conversion, quick customer acquisition, and long-term customer retention. No app, no data plan involved in the process!

Scaling Business to Expanding Markets

In 2023 telcos should try to reach advanced growth markets such as Asia and Africa, having increased demand for telecom services. APAC has been experiencing a jump in telecom revenue from USD 504 Billion to USD 516 Billion i.e. 2.3 percent year-on-year growth (Source : International Data Corporation). The number of mobile users in Africa stands at one third of their population as of now, rising up almost 23 percent between the period of 2019 to 2021. As per GSMA intelligence, by 2025, there will be an influx of six-hundred million new subscribers, predominantly based out of Asian countries.

Scaling business globally and reaching new customer bases in lucrative business areas like APAC and MENA could be a challenging proposition for telcos without adoption of new tools and technologies. Traditional marketing platforms can serve no purpose offering limited or no global scalability. Fortunately, some innovative digital tools & technologies like moLotus, InMobi, AdRoll, InMobi, etc. have come to the rescue of telcos offering globally scalable campaigns.

More telecom players would prefer new-age tools like moLotus in 2023 which is going to offer the much-needed massive reach and global scalability. The innovative technology instantly delivers automated messages to huge telco customer data directly into their inbox on all mobile phones, irrespective of type or model.

Accelerated Transformation Progress

The entire world is getting digitally transformed, and by 2023, this digital transformation will be rapidly underway. In the past telcos were plagued by silos and complexities in legacy customer & business processes inhibiting them from innovating at speed. In 2023 the telecom landscape will witness more digitization, transformation and automation of business processes.

With the acceleration of 5G, IoT and inflow of disruptive technologies like moLotus, more telcos would undergo digital transformation enhancing customer experience, creating more customer-centric products and services with greater efficacy.

Digital Transformation in telecom sector involves intelligently re-imagining the business processes using platforms like moLotus; ensuring more revenues with agility, speed, and cost reduction. Telcos have tried out several technologies like cloud offerings, PaaS, SaaS, low code platforms, and the open source softwares for digital transformation in the past. Studies show that they have not achieved the desired outcomes using most of them adding to their woes.

moLotus powered breakthrough transformation will empower the telcos in 2023 by automating and transforming customer processes like customer onboarding, payment & service reminders, contract renewals, document submission, customer loyalty, and many more. With moLotus breakthrough transformations, more telcos would enter into the modern digital landscape, exceeding customer expectations and improving overall customer experience at lesser costs & higher returns.

Deepening Customer Engagement

In 2023 the telecom ecosystem is expected to extend far beyond the traditional activities encompassing not just the basic services but also the non-core and complementary products and services. This calls for a lot of technology innovation, agility and development of go-to-market strategies.

The digital consumer of 2023 and beyond has evolved expectations when it comes to product promotion, delivery, and customer service. With more options likely to be available in the market in 2023, it becomes imperative for telcos to create tangible value and a key differentiator in their service offerings to engage customers and retain loyalty.

For enhancing customer experience next year, it is most important to understand their pain points. Customers now expect uninterrupted services, a wide range of hyper-personalized product recommendations, and real-time resolution of their service issues. All this is possible by embracing the moLotus mobile video customer interaction platform and technology!

Telocs should be exploring innovative ways to interact and engage with customers effectively. In 2023, adding interactive elements to customer communication would be one of the best ways to engage more customers and enhance customer experience via moLotus' easy response options such as SMS, USSD, Call, Click Web URL, etc. The interaction should not be restricted to promotion of products and services but also talk about new ways of using them.

Experts predict that moLotus is going to engage more customers for telcos by offering unique hyper-personalization options such as name, greeting, reward, etc. Also, telcos now have the opportunity to use a wide variety of rich media formats including videos, slideshows, brochures, greetings, and showcases offered by moLotus for improving visual communication. They can easily add product pictures, voice-overs and music, creating attractive storyboards and HQ videos up-to 40 sec.

Telcos must incentivise and delight their loyal customers via moLotus with special offers, vouchers, discounts coupons. In return they can request them to leave reviews or upsell and cross-sell them.

Driving Down Costs

With growing competition in the telecom market, the revenue margin for traditional telecom services are expected to decrease significantly in 2023. Due to this, driving down operational expenses (OPEX) and overhead costs has to be a chief focus for telcos across the globe in order to maintain their competitive edge. The biggest potential is based on automating the existing operational processes and embracing process automation.

Overheads acoss telcos around the world are soaring and this trend is going to continue in 2023 mounting greater pressure on margins at a time when the telecom industry can hardly handle any additional financial burden. Nevertheless, experts suggest that telecom operators can certainly reduce costs by at least 15 to 30 percent using marketing and transformation technologies like moLotus.

For telcos in search of a cost-effective marketing platform, moLotus would be an economical and efficient alternative in 2023. It is worthwhile mentioning that moLotus has been creating effective advertising campaigns on a small budget. Platforms like Facebook and Google, which used to be the choice of telcos, are gradually losing their appeal due to mounting costs and low marketing ROI. It is an ideal option for telco businesses to reach consumers on their mobile phones at a lesser cost without requiring any application download or data plans.

moLotus breakthrough transformations can automate and digitize entire telco marketing processes; lowering the cost of tele calling, training, compliance, printing and delivery, etc.

Emphasis on Big Data Analytics

With the surge in usage of smartphones and other mobile devices, there has been an increase in the volume of data available with the telecom operators. In 2023, telcos need to rapidly store, process and extract useful insights from more data. This is where lies the importance of big data analytics. According to Valuates Reports, the global big data analytics market is projected to reach USD 684.12 Billion by 2030 from USD 198.08 Billion in 2020 growing at a CAGR of 13.5% during the forecast period.

Big data technologies including moLotus will help telcos to increase profitability by helping them in optimizing network usage and services, acquire more customers, enhance customer experience, reduce churn rate and improve security. According to a research report presented by Mckinsey & Company, the telecom industry can predict and reduce customer churn by 15% using Big data analytics.

moLotus Big data analytics provides the telecom industry with access to new opportunities in 2023. It can improve the quality of service by analyzing customer data records in real-time. Telcos can also identify evolving customer behavior and act on them immediately, ultimately giving them a competitive advantage in the market and helping tap hidden potential.

Based on the deep data intelligence derived using moLotus, telcos can design and implement marketing strategies matching to customer’s needs and wants, micro-targeting massive customer data based on varied business criteria including interaction, demographics, interests, language, and sending customized ads to customers.

Facing ARPU Pressure

Telcos might face tricky times in 2023 as a result of economic difficulties and existing market pressures as per Analysys Mason’s research predictions for the global telecom industry. The report further says that the biggest issue for telcos in 2023 will be coping with inflation and particularly rising costs. This further indicates the possibility of telecom average revenue per user (ARPU) not keeping pace with growing inflation.

Growing ARPU together with increasing subscribers in such challenging situations will be one of the biggest business challenges. Experts are suggesting telcos to treat customers better in 2023 by adding breakthrough marketing technologies like moLotus in their digital marketing mix. By doing so they will be able to engage customers better, offer more value, and assist them in getting the most out of products at every stage of customer journey, finally leading to greater customer lifetime value with ARPU upliftment.

Despite the dismal predictions there is a ray of hope with moLotus technology partnering with several telcos across the world; uplifting their ARPU from 2 to 4 percent. moLotus shadow marketing is helping telcos in executing their existing marketing campaigns achieving superior customer response and that too at lower cost. moLotus driven upsells, cross-sells, add-ons campaigns are likely to drive ARPU in 2023, beating the inflationary pressures.

Final Thoughts

In 2023 every telco has to experience a unique set of challenges which need to be addressed intelligently and carefully. According to Goldman Sachs, the market outlook is quite challenging as the telecom industry will be reeling under high investment costs, low potential returns, rising prices, etc.

Based on the aforementioned takeaways, telcos need to steer their path through difficulties, rolling out go-to-market strategies, transforming business processes, optimizing costs and gaining more revenue streams. Embracing new technologies like moLotus would empower them acting as the panacea to all the major challenges, boosting growth.