Mobile data roaming traffic generated by consumer and IoT devices reached 737 Petabytes in 2019, according to roaming experts Kaleido Intelligence. This is forecast to reach 2,000 Petabytes in 2024, representing an average annual growth of 22% over the period.

Driven by the significant increase in roaming data traffic across key regions including Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Kaleido predicts that consumer inbound wholesale roaming revenues will reach $16 billion in 2024, with IoT adding a further $5.7 billion.

Nitin Bhas, Chief of Strategy & Insights at Kaleido Intelligence said: “Roam-Like-At-Home will continue to be the most important revenue driver, followed by the introduction of IoT and 5G roaming services. However, the challenge here is to identify and predict what data roaming services will look like in 3 years’ time; i.e. IoT and 5G use cases that will have an impact – anything from connected cars to high-speed video services.”

Telco Roaming Challenges & Opportunities: Survey Findings Roaming Data Traffic

Key findings from Kaleido Intelligence’s operator survey conducted in H2-2019 included:

• Ensuring a premium customer experience from a 4G/5G roaming perspective was found to be the biggest challenge by participants.
• Real-time business analytics and intelligence were found to be the most popular and immediate technical requirements.
• 67% of the global operators surveyed reported over 5% increase in traffic in 2019; in comparison, 11% reported between 1-5% increase.

BICS, Mobileum, Vodafone Roaming Services, Nextgen Clearing Leads Kaleido Scores for Roaming Vendors

Kaleido Intelligence’s Wholesale Roaming Strategies & Competitive Analysis 2020 report analyses the wholesale roaming sector, including an in-depth assessment of 30 vendors across the roaming value chain.

The top three players across key product segments as scored by Kaleido Intelligence are as follows.

Mikael Schachne, CMO and VP Mobility & IoT Solutions at BICS said: “We are pleased to have received the leading Kaleido Score in IPX alongside top scores across multiple product categories. This showcases how well positioned BICS is to address all kinds of roaming specificities. BICS is constantly innovating and remains at the cutting edge of technology to provide the best cost and quality for operators”.