Telco API revenues set to reach $207b by 2022

Global revenues from telecommunications application programming interfaces (APIs) is on track to reach $207 billion worldwide by 2022, Research and Markets has predicted.

A new report from the research firm finds that the telco API market has significantly matured in recent years. But much of the market activity has so far been limited to larger operators in developed countries, leaving significant room for growth in emerging markets.

During the past five years, operators have leveraged APIs to derive wholesale transaction revenues from third-parties such as OTT providers and enterprises, as well as communication-enabled application revenue, the report states.

Operators have the potential to achieve incremental growth by providing a variety of services and application support, such as robo and unwanted call blocking services to support do not call registries and compliance with consumer protection regulation.

But in the long term, revenue from traditional consumer centric services supported from telecom APIs is expected to level off, with revenue associated with IoT services becoming the new markte driver.

The report predicts that communication-enabled network revenue will plateau as IoT network support revenue becomes a more substantial revenue component for Telecom APIs by 2025.