Mobile revenues from voice business will drop 10 percent annually to $197 billion by 2023 from $354 billion in 2018, according to a Juniper Research report.

New opportunities – 5G, CPaaS (Communications Platforms-as-a-Service) and VoLTE – will enable mobile operators to sustain, or even increase, service revenues.

5G connections will exceed 370 million by 2023, generating $88 billion revenue for mobile operators. This will be over 50 percent of the anticipated voice revenue loss. Operators could generate additional revenue through support for new voice services; powered by technologies such as Google’s Duplex.

Mobile operators must adopt new ecosystems of converged technologies, including voice, messaging and digital assistants such as Alexa. Operators will be able to opt for a CPaaS (Communications Platforms-as-a-Service) model using a single platform to offer central management of communication.

OTT apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger will generate 15.7 trillion minutes of voice usage by 2023 — equivalent to streaming 3.8 trillion music tracks. Operators should use VoLTE technology to offer superior voice quality.

“The OTT ecosystem is fragmented and, as a result, is unable to offer the same level of reach as operators. Operators must adopt the CPaaS approach to win back traffic to maximise OTTs shortfall in this area and minimise future shortfall in revenues,” Research author Sam Barker said.

Juniper forecasts that VoLTE users will exceed the OTT voice app users for the first time in 2020.