The European telecom market will return to revenue growth in 2016 for the first time since 2008, according a report by Idate for the industry group ETNO. It predicts growth of 0.01 percent in the EU-28, 0.2 percent in ETNO member countries and 0.3 percent across Europe, compared to falls of respectively 1.2, 1.7 and 1.4 percent last year. Europe is still the weakest region in the world, with the global market expected to grow by 1.2 percent in 2016, up from 0.5 percent last year.
Growth is driven by strong demand for fixed and mobile broadband services. European users are expected to more than double their downstream and upstream traffic loads per fixed broadband line between 2015 and 2020. On the mobile side the increase will be even more significant, with downstream traffic per mobile internet user growing from 1.1 GB per month to an estimated 7.4 GB in 2020.
The combination of modest revenue growth and strong data demand creates an investment challenge for operators. Nevertheless capital expenditure has continued to increase in recent years, reaching EUR 47.0 billion in 2015 in the EU compared to EUR 42.7 billion in 2011. Among ETNO members, capex rose to 16.6 percent of revenue last year from 15.8 percent in 2014.