The ratio of Capex to revenues, or capital intensity, reached 17.2 percent in 2021, the highest level since 2015.
The surge in mobile network spending was due to: COVID-delayed projects finally getting fulfilled; 5G’s spread into more countries and growth in subscriber counts; 5G core scaling up with a growing number of stand-alone deployments, many leveraging partners from the cloud; and increased fiber deployment in rural areas and for mobile infrastructure connectivity.
Excluding China-based companies, the top 10 biggest Capex spenders in 2021 were AT&T, DT, Verizon, NTT, Comcast, Vodafone, Orange, Charter, America Movil, and Telefonica.
The biggest Capex gains in 2021 were seen at America Movil (+$2.54 billion versus 2020), Telecom Italia (+$2.49 billion), Verizon (+$2.09 billion), AT&T (+$1.93 billion), Deutsche Telekom (+$1.74 billion), BT (+$1.63 billion), and Rakuten ($1.47 billion).
Leading Indian telecom operators such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) are not finding a place in top 10 Capex list despite them managing huge mobile subscriber base in the country.