Though the rise in sales and developments in technologies and designs taking place on a regular basis in the mobile phone industry may seem like these devices have grown to be necessities in the modern world, the Mobile Telephone Retailers industry has a reason to believe otherwise, going by the difficulties they have had to face in trying to trade, with revenues dwindling.
The last five years have seen immense increase in mobile connections and advancements in the designs and technologies used in the phones, leading to a rise in the demand for the product among consumers. However, this rise in demand can hardly be seen in the records of the retail market. Far from having to manage record setting sales, the Mobile Telephone Retailers industry has been faced with a tough trading environment, with revenue falling by 6.1% annually over the last five years, through 2012-2013 even. The main reason for this, despite the increasing demand among consumers, according to analysts is the increasing competition among operators. With a sudden increase in the number of operators in the market, it has certainly impacted the average prices of phones, causing them to fall and reduced the product margins. Apart from this, the revenue earned by the industry is also impacted by the sentiments and the disposable income of consumers. However, revenues are expected to increase during 2017-2018, due to the increasing popularity of smartphones, the use of these smartphones for the purpose of social networking, sending out emails, online shopping and the rise in the demand for mobile commerce, depending upon the retailers who are willing to offer it.
The market share of the Mobile Telephone Retailers industry is not much, and adding to their worries is the constant competition between external and internal players that eats into the shares previously owned by the top players of the industry. Operators are facing internal competition from players who are willing to offer contracts, promotional packages and formulate pricing strategies. In addition to this, mobile network operators are out to attain their share of the retail market. Acquisitions and mergers are rife, with larger players who are earning maximum profits purchasing smaller operators.
Amid all of this, only time will tell if the retail industry will be able to match up to expectations and reflect an increase in the revenue in the years to come.
