In terms of subscriber numbers, the mobile telephony market is dominated by three companies with fairly similar shares. These are Claro (a subsidiary of Mexican telecom group America Movil); Movistar (a unit of the Spanish telecom group Telefonica); and Personal (a subsidiary of Telecom Argentina). These had a combined market share of 98.4% at end-2017. In recent years, competition between the three main players has intensified, mainly in the field of mobile broadband services – the fastest growing ICT segment in Argentina. As of December 2017, there were 31.6mn users of mobile broadband in the country, equivalent to 51.1% of total mobile telephony subscribers. Moreover, the number of 4G mobile telephony subscribers reached 22.5mn, or 71.2% of all mobile broadband connections. This has forced local telecom operators to invest in expansion of their coverage and improving the quality of their 4G networks, as well as to offer attractive pre-paid plans, with a special focus on mobile broadband services.

A home to 7.5% of the world’s oil reserves and 7.1% of the global natural gas reserves, Africa is an important player in the hydrocarbon industry. The continent’s share in global oil production stood at 8.7% in 2017, slightly up from 8.4% in the previous year. Africa’s contribution to the global natural gas production was smaller, with the continent accounting for a share of 6.1% in 2017, up from 5.8% in 2016. After declining for four straight years, Africa’s crude oil production increased by 5% y/y to 8,072 mbbl/d in 2017, according to data published in the 2018 edition of BP Statistical Review of World Energy. The annual growth was the strongest among all oil producing regions and well above the global oil production increase of just 0.7% y/y. The major contributors were Nigeria and Libya, which were the only ones among Africa’s top five oil producers to register higher production than in 2016. The others witnessed a decline, mostly in line with production cuts agreed to by OPEC members. Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, registered a 4.5% rise in production to 1,988 mbbl/d in 2017. Libya more than doubled oil supply to 865 mbbl/d, helping it become Africa’s fourth largest oil producer in 2017, moving Egypt to the fifth position. Tunisia experienced the steepest drop of 11.8% y/y, pumping 53 mbbl/d of crude oil in 2017. South Sudan witnessed another decline in oil production in 2017 but as the country emerged from a five-year civil war with the peace deal agreed in August 2018, prospects for the oil sector look encouraging.

Data centers are built, operated, and maintained to process a vast amount of both customer and business data. The number of people accessing the internet has grown significantly in the past decade from about 1.5 billion in 2008 to 4.1 billion in 2017 around the world. Consequently, the amount of data generated has also grown by over 50 times because of the increasing use of desktop systems, smartphone penetration, social media, wearable devices, and connected devices.

Visual impairment is a broad term, which involves moderate or severe vision loss or complete blindness. It is a global health concern that has a negative impact on both physical and mental health. Preventive blindness, which was considered among common ailments, will soon emerge as a major challenge to the global healthcare system. Blindness and visual impairment necessitate significant costs as they not only constitute high productivity loss but also increase the burden on healthcare spending significantly. According to the IAPB, about 36 million people were categorized as blind, and about 217 million people were estimated to suffer from moderate to severe visual impairment (MVSI) in 2014. According to the WHO, uncorrected errors, especially myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism, constituted 43% of overall visual impairment cases in 2014.

Predictions has been published since 2001. Back in 2009 and 2010, we wrote about the launch of exciting new fourth-generation wireless networks called 4G (aka LTE). A decade later, we’re now making predictions about 5G networks that will be launching this year. Not surprisingly, our forecast for the first year of 5G is that it will look a lot like the first year of 4G in terms of units, revenues, and rollout. But while the forecast may look familiar, the high data speeds and low latency 5G provides could spur the evolution of mobility, health care, manufacturing, and nearly every industry that relies on connectivity. In previous reports, we also wrote about 3D printing (aka additive manufacturing). Our tone was positive but cautious, since 3D printing was growing but also a bit overhyped. But time has passed. Reality has caught up to—or in some ways even surpassed—the earlier enthusiasm, and we now have new and impressive forecasts for that industry. We also wrote about eSports, which has evolved from a cult phenomenon to simply “phenomenon,” with big implications for media companies and advertisers.

Predictions has been published since 2001. Back in 2009 and 2010, we wrote about the launch of exciting new fourth-generation wireless networks called 4G (aka LTE). A decade later, we’re now making predictions about 5G networks that will be launching this year. Not surprisingly, our forecast for the first year of 5G is that it will look a lot like the first year of 4G in terms of units, revenues, and rollout. But while the forecast may look familiar, the high data speeds and low latency 5G provides could spur the evolution of mobility, health care, manufacturing, and nearly every industry that relies on connectivity. In previous reports, we also wrote about 3D printing (aka additive manufacturing). Our tone was positive but cautious, since 3D printing was growing but also a bit overhyped. But time has passed. Reality has caught up to—or in some ways even surpassed—the earlier enthusiasm, and we now have new and impressive forecasts for that industry. We also wrote about eSports, which has evolved from a cult phenomenon to simply “phenomenon,” with big implications for media companies and advertisers.

The global caprolactam value chain consists of raw material suppliers, caprolactam manufacturers, distribution channels, and application industries. Raw materials such cyclohexane, ammonia and phenol are used in manufacturing of caprolactam. Raw material production is concentrated in the U.S. and China owing to the presence of numerous oil refineries in the countries. Chevron Phillips, Terra Industries and Huntsman Corporation are some of the key raw materials producers used in manufacturing of caprolactam.

The cancer diagnostics market has been segmented on three levels: Screening types, application, and geography. Screening types comprises laboratory tests, genetic tests, imaging, endoscopy, biopsy, and others. The application segment is categorized into breast, colorectal, cervical, lung, cervical, prostate, skin, blood, kidney, liver, pancreatic, ovarian cancers, and others. Key regions includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and MEA.

Accelerated pace of internet penetration with internet users estimated to grow to 1.5x in just 4 years (over FY18-22E) and a maturing space with product buyers likely to grow to 2.5x will boost internet sector in India. This will benefit online classifieds players in job listing, matrimony and real estate – largely a play on ecosystem maturity – by increasing their penetration in tier 2 and tier 3 cities reaping dividends of fast-evolving ecosystem (dirt-cheap data, affordable smartphones etc.) improving macros (rising GDP and discretionary incomes) and favourable demography (young populace). We assess the threat to online classifieds plays from horizontal players like Google and Facebook and how some of these are making money by investing into newer spaces. We also peep into fast-changing internet landscape, ecommerce and e-tailing, the new emerging verticals, and how companies are trying to cope with high cash burn et al.

In line with its anticipated trajectory, the annual CPI inflation rate saw a steeper downward path in the last quarter of 2018. The indicator went down to 3.4 percent in November and subsequently decelerated to 3.3 percent in December, thus moving deeper into the band associated with the flat target of 2.5 percent ±1 percentage point. Both in November and December, the actual annual inflation rates were below the benchmark projection set out in the November 2018 Inflation Report, reflecting primarily supply-side shocks associated with falling international oil prices, as well as with the decline in citrus prices amid the bumper crop at a European level. The downward trend of the annual inflation rate in Q4 was driven by developments in all consumer basket components, including those in the adjusted CORE2 index, whose dynamics came in at 2.5 percent in December 2018, decelerating from 2.8 percent in September. At the same time, however, the average annual CPI inflation rate continued to rise from 4.5 percent in September to 4.6 percent in December. The average annual HICP inflation rate followed a similar path, adding 0.3 percentage points from 3.8 percent in September to 4.1 percent in December. The differential versus the EU average remained high, i.e. above 2 percentage points.