Every several years, it seems, the mobile industry exhausts a former growth driver and has to create a new source of growth. In the past, voice revenues, then connection volume, then text messaging revenues and then internet access have provided key growth drivers for a time.
Multi-line accounts were successful, for a time, as a means to grow account value. Perhaps new packaging creating bundles of fixed and mobile service are next. We just do not know, yet.
For most of the past decade, U.S. mobile operators have relied on moving customers to unlimited plans--at higher prices--to fuel growth.
But that inevitably will reach a natural end. Already, one survey finds 77 percent of consumers reporting they already buy such plans. The runway still exists for another 20 percent of the market to be shifted to higher-priced accounts.
To be sure, the Covid-19 pandemic work from home and learn from home restrictions seem to have boosted net account growth. But nobody thinks that will last.
So something else will inevitably need to be found to fuel growth, assuming any particular mobile operator cannot rely on market share gains, as T-Mobile, Dish Network, Comcast and Charter Communications expect will drive their revenue growth.
AT&T and Verizon will have a tough time growing by taking market share. So mobile service account growth will not be the logical driver of growth. There is hope for new revenue from network slicing, edge computing and internet of things connections, to be sure.
But in the consumer market some new revenue driver will soon have to be discovered.
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