AnalystXpress

OTT TV services refers to video content that is delivered directly to digital users. The signal is received over the Internet or through a mobile phone network, as opposed to receiving the television signal from a terrestrial satellite or broadcast. Consumers can access OTT content through Internet-connected devices. As Internet usage has become more mainstream, there has been a gradual shift in consumers’ viewing habits; moving away from traditional cable and pay TV to increased consumption of video streaming services, produced by online video giants such as Amazon Video, Netflix, and Hulu.
 

Edge computing is a form of distributed computing wherein computationally intensive tasks are undertaken not at a centralised cloud storage facility several hundred miles away, but either by the device that collected the data, a larger on-premises gateway, or an off-premises edge node that still remains relatively close to the end user. By arranging their networks in this way, operators and enterprises can benefit from reductions in latency and lag, as well as significant savings in bandwidth costs.

RCS (Rich Communication Services) business messaging traffic is currently low. However, it seems to have been unhindered by the pandemic and it is now set to soar over the next five years. Indeed, Juniper Research believes that the total number of RCS users will rise to 1.2 billion by the end of 2020, with significant uptake coming from North America and the Far east & China. This has largely been driven by continuing increased support from both operators and the uptake of RCS-capable smartphones, as users upgrade handsets. 

The Acquiring Market
In a world economy fundamentally altered by the COVID-19 pandemic, card transactions are more important than ever, as economies try to further reduce the use of cash and encourage the use of contactless payments. As such, acquirers have a more important role than ever before in ensuring seamless card acceptance across an increasingly greater range of merchants. Not only is acquiring more important than before, but also many smaller businesses are beginning to accept card for the first time, meaning this is a highly important time for acquirers to focus on their solutions. This rapid focusing of attention can be seen in the significant growth of contactless transactions values identified in Figure 1, in data from Juniper Research.
 

Smart devices in the home are now a mainstay feature. It has been almost six years since the release of the Amazon Echo. Now, voice assistants, produced by numerous providers, are just one of various smart devices smart home meters, smart entertainment systems and smart security systems that have penetrated the market and continue to rise in popularity. Indeed, there will be almost 13.5 billion smart home devices in active use by 2025, compared to an expected 7.4 billion at year end 2020.

Industrial IoT (Industrial Internet of Things) refers to the application of IoT technology in industrial sectors. With a focus on M2M (machine-to-machine) communication and machine learning, Industrial IoT enables corporations to improve efficiency and reliability of key operations, leading to reduced costs and a minimisation of unplanned downtime. For this reason, IIoT connections will grow in every sector served by it, but it will be smart manufacturing the key growth sector of the Industrial IoT market over the next five years, accounting for 22 billion connections by 2025. But what measures should enterprises implement to make a success of IIoT?

The growing adoption of digital identity apps is changing the way citizens store their government-issued identities. In fact, civic identity apps are set to overtake the number of digital identity cards in use in 2023. This shift has definitely been aided by COVID-19, as the number of civic identity apps has grown unprecedently since the advent of the pandemic.

Digital therapeutics and wellness apps have become a lifeline for many during the pandemic, as people were unable to leave their homes to receive help maintaining their physical and mental health. As a result, the number of people using digital therapeutics and wellness apps are expected to grow from 627 million in 2020 to more than 1.4 billion in 2025. 

Despite 2020 only being its first full year of commercial service, 5G is expected to become the driving force behind mobile operator revenue. Indeed, a new study from Juniper Research anticipates that 5G revenue will represent 44% of global operator billed revenue, thanks to the rapid migration of 4G mobile subscribers to 5G networks and new business use cases enabled by 5G technology. One of the reasons behind this growth is that 5G roll-outs are highly resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic, as supply chain disruptions caused by the initial periods of the pandemic have been mitigated through modified physical roll-out procedures.

Despite the popularity of digital subscriptions, such as Netflix or Spotify, it is the physical goods market that will drive subscription economy growth. Indeed, a recent Juniper Research study found that consumer subscriptions for physical goods will grow from an expected $64 billion in 2020 to more than $263 billion in 2025.