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Dec 7, 2021
Moa Capital Acquires TeleGeography
A quick bit of news from the TeleGeography team. TeleGeography has been acquired by Moa Capital, a...
Broadly speaking, telecom service providers have two ways of connecting traffic to a destination telco.
They can either connect directly with the destination carrier or route traffic to a wholesale carrier that connects to a destination telco.
Many retail service providers, such as mobile operators, MVNOs, and cable broadband providers, rely heavily on wholesale carriers to transport and terminate their customers’ international calls. Wholesale carriers terminated approximately 217 billion minutes of traffic in 2024, down 8% from 2023.
Let’s take a moment to dive in a bit and see what's going on.
Wholesale revenues are down 25% from ten years ago. Let’s take a moment to dive in a bit and see what's going on. A few years ago, one could say that traffic to mobile phones in emerging markets had driven international wholesale market growth. No longer.
Wholesale Revenues by Market Type, 2014 and 2024
Wholesale traffic declined at an average rate of 1.5% per year over the past ten years, compared to a -6% CAGR for overall traffic. Wholesale carriers terminated more than two-thirds (71%) of international traffic in 2024, essentially unchanged from the year before.
Traffic to mobile phones in emerging markets has spurred expansion in wholesalers' share of the overall market. In 2024, wholesale carriers terminated over 86% of traffic to South America. In contrast, wholesale carriers terminated only 55% of traffic to western Europe.
Wholesale Traffic by Market Type, 2014 and 2024
Notes: Advanced markets are defined as those of the upper 30th percentile of countries as ranked by GDP per capita in 2024. Emerging markets are those of countries in the lower 70th percentile. World and regional totals exclude countries with extremely low traffic volumes. Source: © 2025 TeleGeography
Compare the figures for revenue and traffic. It's plain as day that revenues to fixed lines in both advanced and emerging economies has collapsed. At the same time, you'll see that revenues from calls to mobiles in all markets has shrunk slightly over the past ten years, to about $10.1 billion.
Who's carrying this traffic? Take a look at the figure below.
Traffic Volumes of Major Carriers
Notes: Pre-2013 data for Vodafone, which reflect the combined traffic of Vodafone and the former Cable & Wireless Communications, are not available. Source: © 2025 TeleGeography
This graph shows a ranking of some of the world’s largest international carriers. The top 8 operators in the figure carried 41% of all global traffic in 2024, about 125 billion minutes. Only one of the eight largest carriers in the world—BTS—terminated more traffic in 2024 than in 2023. Chew on that for a bit.
International voice telecom data
Get this data and analysis—and much more—in TeleGeography's International Voice Report platform. It delivers comprehensive data on the international long-distance voice market. Benchmark services, traffic levels, and pricing and track trends and growth—all with the industry's most comprehensive international voice intelligence.
