In the first of a number of Mobile World Congress-themed posts, here’s the Financial Time’s take on the state of the telco industry. With the billing relationship being undermined by app stores, customers feeling stronger affinity towards their smartphone vendors and applications, and competition driving down both revenues and quality, it is a tough time. Yet Ericsson’s CEO sees opportunities too: “Ten years ago, they all did the same things. But now carriers have suddenly got a lot of options — some will go into TV and media, others into cloud services, others the connected car and home. Some will do them all.”
We’ll see in which direction each operator will decide to go.