|
 Analysis, Mobile, Markets, Revenue,
Asia-Pacific: Asia-Pacific remains a high-growth
mobile market (61.3% of last year’s revenue) at a time when cellular is fast
approaching worldwide saturation. India and
China are key to this. Analysis to support this view comes from
consultants Frost & Sullivan in its report Benchmarking of Service
Providers in Asia-Pacific.
The booming economies of China and
India are fuelling the growing demand for telecommunication services in
the Asia-Pacific region. Benchmarking of Service Providers in Asia-Pacific, new
analysis from Frost & Sullivan, reveals that Asia-Pacific telecoms -
covering 12 major economies ex-Japan and including fixed, mobile, Internet and
data communications - earned revenues of US$181.4 billion in 2006. By the end
of 2012 revenues are estimated to reach US$298.2 billion.
Mobile services accounted for the bulk of telecom revenues
in 2006 at 61.3%, while fixed, Internet and data communications services
accounted for 25.4%, 8.9% and 4.4% respectively.
Fixed telephony subscribers in Asia-Pacific totalled 402.2
million in 2006, and are forecast to grow at Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
of 2.7% from 2006 to 2012, driven mainly by the subscriber growth in China and
India but also in Indonesia and Thailand, which also have large populations and
low household penetration rates.
Why mobile still
witnesses growth
 Research analyst Karpagam Palaniappan notes that
Asia-Pacific is still one of the few surviving high-growth mobile markets at a
time when the cellular industry is fast approaching saturation globally. In
2006, the cellular subscriber base was 819.5 million (ex-Japan) and is forecast
to reach 1.68 billion by end-2012, at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2006-2012. The
region’s robust growth is fuelled by China, India, Indonesia
and the Philippines, which are now moving into the untapped rural areas to take
advantage of low penetration rates and sustainable growth.
Analyst Palaniappan identifies several challenges to
Asia-Pacific telecoms: deregulation, economic conditions, inadequate awareness
of emerging technologies, low household penetration levels, and service quality
issues. All these negatively impact both consumers and service providers.
More specifically, IP telephony is singled out: it has
relatively low impact in Asia-Pacific due to regulatory uncertainty, lack of
bandwidth, interconnection, and quality of service issues. Similarly,
technologies such as 3G, WiMAX and FTTx (Fibre-To-The-Exchange), which are
rapidly gaining popularity worldwide, are only just emerging in Asia.
The key factors shaping the growth of the telecom industry
are likely to be intense competition and market consolidation, coupled with
innovations and investments in emerging technologies, as well as improving the
quality of customer service.
The Benchmarking of Service Providers in Asia Pacific is
part of the Frost & Sullivan Communications Services subscription and
includes research on 12 countries. A virtual brochure is available by emailing
Letticia Leopold, Corporate Communications, at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
, and by
supplying full name, company name, title, telephone number, fax number, city,
state, country and e-mail address.
|
Date: 2 - 5 September 2008