The post-pandemic world has accelerated change in the technology, media and telcommunications landscape, with telehealth, women’s sport and immersive tech leading the charge in 2021 and beyond.
Deloitte Australia’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions report, highlights how worldwide trends in TMT may affect businesses and consumers worldwide.
The report also highlights how many of these trends are being driven by the global pandemic’s economic and societal impacts, resulting in intensifying growth in video, virtual, and cloud technologies.
The main findings of the report included:
The cloud migration forecast: The cloud market in Australia will continue to grow in 2021, doubling in size by 2025.
5G is not hazardous to your health: In 2021, the proportion of Australians who believe there are health risks associated with 5G, or admit they don’t know about its effects, will fall below 20 per cent (down from 34 per cent in 2020).
Gaining an intelligent edge: The Australian market for intelligent edge will be around $A590 million and will be mainly driven by telcos and hyperscalers.
The next-generation radio access network: We predict that in the next three years we will see the first live deployments of Open RAN in Australia with 30 per cent of these being from new MNO entrants.
Women’s sport gets down to business: As broadcast deals commit to greater coverage of women’s games we expect a re-balancing of broadcast hours with women’s sport to account for up to 25 per cent of total broadcast sporting hours by 2025, accounting for the vast majority of growth in total sports consumption and in new consumers of sport.
The hyperquantified athlete: In the next 18 months, Deloitte Australia predicts that there will be an increased level of consolidation of athlete data platforms and associated services for Tier 1 sporting organisations as larger players look to broaden their capabilities and breadth of offerings in this market.
TV’s New Year resolution: There is a dedicated group of loyal sports fans (approximately 20 per cent of Australians) who would be comfortable paying more than $30 per month for sport content placing it as a premium compared to the competitive streaming market and existing sport content propositions.
From virtual to reality: We predict that Australia will be in line with global trends, with VR, AR and MR sales growing by 100 per cent in 2021 over 2019 levels, as well as an increase in sales of software and services related to this technology.
Video visits go viral: We predict that Australia will exceed the global average for telehealth adoption with more than 10 per cent of Australians regularly using telehealth services in 2021.
Commenting on the findings, Deloitte Australia telco, media and entertainment leader Will Castles said while some technologies followed expected growth patterns, the reality of a global pandemic has resulted in unprecedented technology acceleration that has fundamentally changed how we live and work.
“A range of enterprise and consumer technologies—from 5G to the cloud to virtual reality—will continue to offer opportunities to the worldwide business ecosystem,” Castles said.
“All of the trends this year were shaped to some extent by the global pandemic, accelerating change by years in some areas and throwing up some interesting curveballs in others, and creating significant new challenges and opportunities in 2021 and beyond.”
