There is no doubt that portable audio and video players are big sellers. Global revenue for the devices should reach $6.8 billion dollars in 2005, up 71 percent from 2004, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. In 2010, revenue is expected to hit $16.1 billion. While this figure includes portable video players, audio-only devices account for 75 percent of the total revenue and 90 percent of unit sales. It’s no wonder, then, that mobile phone makers are tapping into the mobile audio player market with music-enabled handsets such as Motorola’s iTunes phone. Phones that can play MP3s and other music files will reach 76 million units by the end of 2005 and will surge to 478 million units by 2010, for a compound annual growth (CAGR) rate of 44 percent.

SOURCE: Informa Telecoms & Media

Call Centers Go Global

With the movement of customer call centers overseas, it seems that outsourcing is not just for software. Currently, 19 percent of businesses in North America and Western Europe use remote workers for their call centers, generating a market for call center routing technology that reached $3.6 billion in 2004. This market is expected to rise to $4.7 billion by 2009, for a CAGR of 5.5 percent, according to Datamonitor. By the end of 2005, 11 percent of the call center technology industry will be using IP telephony, a figure that is expected to rise to 37 percent by the end of 2009. While North America has the largest market for call center routing technology, Asia’s market is the fastest-growing.

SOURCE: Datamonitor

Phone Boom in India

With such a large population, India is finding that getting everyone connected to a telephone is proving to be a slow but steadily moving process, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. In August, the country gained 2.74 million new mobile subscribers, up 12 percent from July. In addition, 270,000 fixed-line telephone subscribers were added, bringing the total fixed-line market to 47.4 million subscribers. The total number of telephony customers (fixed and mobile combined) reached 110 million at the end of August, bringing the country’s teledensity—the number of phones per 100 people—to 10.12, up from 9.86 in July.

SOURCE: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India