Convergence Consulting Group is back with its annual report detailing the Impact of New Entrants on the Canadian wireless market. The report forecasts that EastLink, Mobilicity, Videotron, Wind Mobile will have 5.8% (1.64 million) of Canadian wireless subs by year-end of 2014. Convergence’s forecast is a full 600,000 subs lower than the projection it made for 2014 in last year’s report, and in fact only 40,000 more than 2012’s year-end subscription numbers.
However, Convergence did state that their 2013 projection depended highly on the “outcome of the 700 MHz Auction and the potential merger or sale of Independent New Entrants.” Obviously, Telus’s acquisition of Public Mobile, which is no longer listed in the report as a New Entrant, had a major impact on the projections, as well as Mobilicity’s ongoing financial woes. In contrast to the New Entrants, Convergence believes that the Big Three (Bell, Rogers, Telus) will see 13% data revenue growth in 2014, representing 49% of their 2014 service revenue.
Convergence also forecasts that weighted ARPU for wireless services to continue to grow, by about 1.2% in 2014 (almost identical to 2013’s growth rate), and that Canadian wireless subscriber smartphone penetration with hit 71% by year-end of 2014, a 6% increase from 2013’s year-end results.
[source]Convergence[/source]
