Dubai, UAE — The UAE and Qatar have emerged as the world’s healthiest telecom markets, ranking first and second, respectively, in Kearney’s 2026 Global Telecom Health Index.
The new benchmark assesses 34 telecom markets globally, expanding on Kearney’s 2025 European Telecom Health Index, which covered 20 European markets.
The UAE and Qatar were the only two markets to combine top-five technology deployment with the two highest customer sentiment scores globally.
Kearney said the findings challenge the assumption that telecom sector health is determined by market size or national wealth.
The UAE and Qatar outperformed larger markets including the United States, South Korea and Singapore, according to the study.
Market structure drives investment
Kearney attributed the Gulf markets’ performance to what it described as a “virtuous cycle”, in which well-structured markets with a small number of national operators can coordinate investment more effectively.
That investment supports high-quality networks and customer satisfaction while generating financial returns that can be reinvested in the sector.
Both the UAE and Qatar have two national mobile operators and rank among the five best markets globally for technology deployment.
The UAE ranked first for customer sentiment, while Qatar ranked second.
The research found that markets with two or three mobile operators generally scored higher across financial, commercial and technology deployment measures than markets with four or more operators.
Size and wealth not decisive
The study found no link between the overall health of a telecom market and either its size or GDP per capita.
The United States, despite its high GDP per capita and widespread fiber and 5G availability, was held back by weaker customer satisfaction and mixed financial returns.
South Korea and Singapore, meanwhile, ranked in the second quartile despite their advanced technology deployment. Kearney said customer satisfaction and returns below expectations constrained their positions.
The findings suggest that creating market conditions that encourage sustained investment and better customer outcomes is more important than adopting a single telecom market model.
Tower ownership linked to performance
Kearney also found that operators retaining ownership of their tower estates, as in the UAE, showed stronger technology deployment and commercial performance than markets where passive infrastructure had been sold off.
The finding adds infrastructure ownership to the factors Kearney identified as contributing to a healthier telecom sector.
The firm said the index is intended to assess the health of telecom sectors at the country level rather than rank individual operators.
Five dimensions of sector health
The index evaluates each of the 34 markets across five dimensions: financial performance, commercial ability, technology deployment, business environment and customer sentiment.
It uses 20 metrics drawn from proprietary Kearney data, primary consumer research and trusted third-party sources.
Financial performance measures operators’ ability to generate returns on capital employed and EBITDA, averaged over the previous three years.
Commercial ability assesses pricing relative to inflation, consumer and business revenue growth, cross-selling of fixed and mobile services, and fiber and 5G penetration.
Technology deployment measures the availability of high-speed digital infrastructure, including fiber and 5G coverage and the speeds delivered.
Business environment covers telecom market concentration and wider economic factors, including economic risk, talent pool quality and government digitization.
Customer sentiment is based on Kearney’s proprietary consumer survey assessing perceptions of mobile and fixed services.
Ranking remains primary output
Kearney said it made several changes to the framework used in its 2025 index after discussions with telecom executives and regulators.
These included adjustments to the measurement and weighting of some metrics and changes to data sources to improve global comparability.
As a result, individual scores cannot be compared with those from the 2025 index, and Kearney said it draws no conclusions about directional trends.
The firm also stressed that the assessment measures the overall telecom sector in each country, rather than individual operators, and should not be treated as an operator league table.
Metrics such as 5G coverage and fiber-to-the-home availability reflect combined investment by all market participants, while some measures, including profitability and return on capital employed, use recent-year averages across leading operators.
For operators belonging to international groups, Kearney said it uses country-specific metrics, with adjustments and allocations of central costs to ensure comparability.
The framework, while involving judgment in the selection and weighting of metrics, is applied consistently across all 34 markets.
