Operators will struggle to win more than a single digit share of the digital advertising market

The digital advertising market will continue to grow strongly – we expect it to increase from around USD200 billion globally today to over USD300 billion in 2022, a CAGR of 9%. Faced with much slower growth in their core business, advertising has attracted interest from some telecoms operators, most notably Verizon and Singtel, both of which have invested over USD1 billion in advertising related acquisitions. Overall though, we expect operators to have little impact on the digital advertising market, taking an increasing but relatively small share (just 6% in 2022), the overwhelming majority of which will be won by Singtel, Verizon and a small number of other operators. Most operators will generate little or no revenue from advertising.