OTTAWA – Canada’s wireless industry generated $43 billion for the Canadian economy in 2010, according to a new report released Monday by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA).
Conducted by UK-based Ovum Consulting, The Benefit to the Canadian Economy from the Wireless Telecommunications Industries: An Economic Impact Assessment, quantifies the economic impact of Canada’s wireless sector in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), investment and employment.
It determined that the wireless communications services industry directly contributed $18 billion to Canada’s GDP and provided an additional $15.66 billion of economic flow through to contributing suppliers in the supply chain. The sector also generated what’s known as a consumer surplus – additional benefit or satisfaction that consumers receive separate from what they pay for the services – which it calculated at $9.31 billion.
In 2010, the industry put out $2.5 billion in capital expenditures, representing more than 14% of aggregate Canadian mobile operators’ revenues, the report continues. This level of capital intensity was greater than the North American average of 13.3% in 2010.
The wireless industry supported more than 260,000 jobs in 2010, with an average salary level of more than $64,732, compared to the Canadian average salary that year of $44,366.
“Canada’s wireless industry has once again demonstrated its critical importance to our country’s economy and prosperity,” said CWTA president and CEO Bernard Lord, who also presented the data Monday afternoon at the Canadian Telecom Summit. “The industry remains committed to ensuring that Canadians are provided with the most advanced and reliable wireless networks available.”
The study uses empirical data from 2010 provided by a number of CWTA members, and obtained from publicly available sources including the CRTC, Statistics Canada, Industry Canada and annual reports of wireless operators, terminal suppliers and network equipment manufacturers. Ovum forecasts for revenues and services in the wireless sector were also used in the modeling.
