Coronavirus’ impact on international travel could cost network operators over $25 billion (€22.5 billion) in lost revenue over the next nine months.
This is according to new analysis from Juniper Research, which examined two possible scenarios: medium and high impact, believing a low impact is now not possible.
The high-impact scenario assumes severe disruption to international travel will continue for nine months, with travel restrictions and reduced demand for international travel continuing.
Over 80% fewer trips
In this scenario, Juniper Research believes over 650 million passenger trips will be cancelled due to coronavirus over the next nine months. This is over 80% of the anticipated international passenger trips that were previously forecast before the spread of the virus.
The research assumes that over half of all roaming revenue for the year will be affected, amounting to $25 billion (€22.5 billion) in lost revenue. A medium-impact outlook anticipates that around $20 billion (€18.05 billion) of potential roaming revenue would be lost.
Overall, global roaming revenue accounts for approximately 6% of total operator-billed revenue per year.
No mitigation
In the period between June and August alone, when the demand for international travel is typically high, Juniper forecasts that operators could lose up to $12 billion (€10.8 billion) in roaming revenue.
According to Juniper, there are unlikely to be any strategies open to operators to mitigate this loss. It forecast that services such as virtual conferencing will offer businesses an alternative to international travel but will provide no benefit to operators.
Additionally, the research highlighted that much of the travel cancelled due to the spread of coronavirus is unlikely to be rebooked. As a result, this loss of roaming revenue is unlikely to be recovered once the international travel industry resumes normal service