Mobile firms look to mature markets to drive revenue - Revenue and ARPU rankings dominated by operators in Western Europe, USA and Japan

Mature mobile markets such as Western Europe, USA and Japan continue to generate the largest revenues for global mobile groups, according to the latest GSMA Intelligence operator rankings. The new study ranks global mobile operators by total reported revenue and calculates group ARPU to provide an alternative measurement to our recent global operator ranking by subscriber connections.

The first two positions in the latest ranking remain unchanged from our earlier study with China Mobile at #1 and Vodafone Group at #2. However, China Mobile's lead over Vodafone is significantly reduced when measured in terms of revenue. The Chinese firm has almost twice as many subscribers but Vodafone generates significantly higher revenue per subscriber due to its presence in key Western European markets such as Germany, UK, Italy and Spain, which continue to account for the bulk of group revenue at the UK-based firm. The other two Chinese mobile operators also drop further down the list when measured by revenue; China Unicom is ranked #5 by connections but #20 by revenue, while China Telecom (#24 by connections) fails to make our new top 25 ranking.

Like Vodafone, other large operator groups with a significant presence in Western Europe are highly-ranked with Germany's Deutsche Telekom at #3, Spain's Telefonica at #5 and Orange-owner France Telecom at #8. French operators score particularly highly; along with Orange France (France Telecom's largest revenue generator), Vivendi – majority owner of second-placed SFR – is at #14 and even third-placed operator Bouygues - ranked a lowly #70 in terms of global connections - is at #25 by revenue.

Deutsche Telekom's position is bolstered by its US subsidiary – T-Mobile USA. The unit is the fourth-largest US operator and has been struggling to compete recently with larger rivals, but it remains the largest contributor of revenue at the German firm. All three of T-Mobile USA's domestic rivals make the top ten: market-leader Verizon Wireless at #4, second-placed AT&T at #6 and third-placed Sprint Nextel at #10. None of these three operators are ranked in the top ten when measured by subscriber connections. ARPU at the US operator groups is calculated at around the US$50 mark, giving the US market the second-highest ARPU levels in our study after Japan.

Completing the top ten is Japanese operator groups NTT Docomo (#7) and KDDI (#9), while the third-placed Japanese mobile operator – SoftBank – is at #13. Docomo was the only Japanese operator to feature in our earlier connections ranking, just making the list at #25. Calculated ARPU at the three Japanese operators is the highest among the top 25 groups in our study with KDDI recording the highest at US$78 and SoftBank Mobile second at US$74. NTT Docomo is fourth overall at US$60. This suggests that Japan comfortably remains the largest mobile market in terms of revenue in the Asia-Pacific region despite being overtaken in terms of subscriber growth. Neighbouring South Korea also scored highly with local mobile operators SK Telecom (#19) and KT (#24) both represented in the top 25.

The dominance of Western Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific markets such as Japan and South Korea means that many large emerging market operators are pushed down – or absent – from the rankings. Latin American giant America Movil, for example, is ranked #4 in subscriber connections but falls out of the top ten to #11 in terms of revenue. The African market-leader MTN falls from #12 to #15 on the same basis. Calculated group ARPU at both these operators is also low relative to other groups in the study.

Notably absent from the list are any Indian-based mobile operators, reflecting the fact that fierce price competition in the world's second-largest mobile market is squeezing revenue at most local operators. Five Indian operators – Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and BSNL – were represented in our earlier subscriber connections ranking. Vodafone controls the country's third-placed operator and India is the UK firm's single largest market in terms of connections. However, India accounted for less than 10 percent of Vodafone Group revenues in 4Q09. Vodafone's presence in India also partly explains why calculated group ARPU (US$17) is significantly below many of its rival European operator groups