The 2025 edition of IBC, one of the largest annual gatherings of the media and entertainment industry, had nearly 44,000 attendees from over 170 countries, with 1,300 exhibitors showcasing innovations and cutting-edge technology. AI was the dominant theme at the show, with a focus on generative AI and agentic AI. But there were also key developments in free-to-air TV and an uptick among vendors looking to increase interactivity to generate customer stickiness.

We have developed a plug-and-play custom calculator for operators and enterprise companies to use their own data and explore the downstream implications of running AI inference at the edge, including total cost of ownership. The calculator is free to use, and includes a selection of parameters that you can customise based on your own deployment plan

Successfully realising ASEAN’s development plans requires concerted efforts by stakeholders to fully leverage the opportunities presented by digitalisation. This report highlights three principal measures to improve digital readiness: bridge the infrastructure gap, accelerate regional policy harmonisation, and leverage international cooperation mechanisms.

The digital transformation of vertical sectors is accelerating across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). GSMA Intelligence surveyed more than 580 enterprises across 10 sectors in five ASEAN countries to gain insight into their digital transformation.

At its recent ‘awe-dropping’ event, Apple unveiled its new line-up of smartphones, earphones and smartwatches, and showcased its innovation in device features.

Q3 2025 saw further trials of direct-to-device (D2D) offerings from telcos, with Rogers in Canada the latest to launch. Examining the trials, it is clear that initial services will focus on SMS and, in some cases, voice. Both are low bandwidth and within the bounds of the spectral capacity available.

This Insight Spotlight is part of our 5G Next series, which helps clarify the next phase of 5G and highlights key technological innovations. Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly critical as it directly affects operational costs, while the integration of new network layers can contribute to rising energy consumption. Reducing operational complexity, unlocking actionable insights and transforming billing will be foundational to achieve efficiency, sustainability goals and long-term network resilience in the 5G era and beyond.

This edition of the Industry Checkpoint series focuses on pay TV, including traditional pay TV and OTT video services, highlighting how the market has changed in the last six months and its implications. The report considers four major developments: acceleration of pay-DTT service closures; US cable operators intensifying their efforts to combat cord-cutting; growing interest from pay-TV operators in FAST-related partnerships; and leading OTT video streaming providers increasing their push on immersive video experiences.

Like at most other technology shows today, AI was ubiquitous at IFA 2025 – the European consumer electronics show – and the growing application of advanced AI, including generative AI, was clear to see. There were also notable developments across the smart home, wearables, smartphones, home robots and gaming.

GSMA Intelligence's Chart of the Month is a visual way of telling an important story in the mobile and broader tech ecosystem. From the shape and size of markets to trends in consumer behaviour, we aim to provide food for thought through informative visuals designed to bring colour and clarity to complex issues facing the industry. This edition examines OEM smartphone market shares globally and across individual regions.

OEM smartphone market shares vary significantly by region and country, offering opportunities to smaller vendors to challenge established players and gain new customers. This report provides granular data on smartphone market shares at global, regional and country levels. The data can be used to formulate or adjust commercial strategies for customer growth and market priorities.

This dashboard provides granular data on OEM smartphone market shares, highlighting leaders, followers and challengers in each country and region, and at the global level. It is a valuable asset not only for OEMs looking to adjust their growth strategies and targets, but also for other players whose businesses heavily rely on smartphone dynamics, including operators and providers of digital services.

At around 16%, Bangladesh’s spectrum-cost-to-revenue ratio exceeds the Asia Pacific median (10.4%) and is twice as high as the global median (7.7%). High spectrum cost has been shown to negatively impact consumer outcomes, such as network coverage and speeds. Reducing prices by 50% would align spectrum costs closer to the Asia Pacific median at about 12% by 2035, boosting 4G speeds by 17% and enabling 99% 5G coverage, yielding a cumulative $34 billion GDP boost. Aligning costs to the global median of 8% of operators’ revenue would increase 4G speeds by 22% and accelerate 5G rollout further, generating a $45 billion GDP boost.

Operator strategies continue to evolve in the digital era as the telecoms industry seeks to capture new growth opportunities in the consumer and enterprise markets. Assessing innovation and achievements is more important than ever before. GSMA Intelligence's operator case studies provide a concise and consistent way to shine a light on and analyse operators' strategies and business models, as well as how they are launching new services. This edition highlights Tele2’s launch of its global VoLTE service to aid the shutdown of its 2G/3G networks, but also with a view to extending the service to IoT customers.