Source: www.voip-news.com

Reminds me of that song from the 80s with the line, “My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.”  According to a recent study by IDC, the worldwide telecom billing market will reach $6.6 billion by 2011, which shows a compound annual growth rate of 6.7% from 2007 to 2011.

“The expected healthy growth of the billing market over the next several years is buoyed by the largest service providers’ billing transformation projects,” said Shira Levine, senior analyst for Next-Generation OSS and Billing at IDC, in a recent statement. “Service providers of all sizes and in all regions are recognizing the critical role that billing will play in the rollout of advanced, revenue-generating services. However, the ability of vendors to provide a solid story around service providers’ both long-term billing migration initiatives and short-term needs for specific services and technologies will be key to their success.

Key findings include:

• The healthy growth of both North America and Western Europe telecom billing markets will slow down toward the end of the forecast period as operators wind down their billing transformation projects, while emerging markets will experience continuous growth through 2011, driven by rapid subscriber increases.
• Wireline and wireless operators will lead investment in billing solutions over the duration of the forecast period, with broadband cable and satellite operators lagging behind.
• While the charging/rating market will grow steadily, and to a lesser extent, the core billing sector will show good growth, the standalone mediation systems market will remain flat.