South Asia Wireless Outlook 2010

The South Asian region’s large population of 1.47 billion still offers a huge room for growth, and hence, immense opportunity for local as well as regional service providers. The region’s wireless market is likely to witness a lot of activities as new participants and new technologies, especially 3G, enter and significantly influence market dynamics. This report discusses the four South Asian markets, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, giving an in-depth analysis of these mobile markets including their political and economic updates, market and technology trends, operator market shares, mobile revenues, key regulatory issues, and so on.
Research Overview
This Frost & Sullivan research service titled South Asia Wireless Outlook 2010 provides an in-depth analysis of the market drivers and restraints, industry trends, and competitive environment in addition to the challenges and issues faced by participants. The study covers four markets in the region; Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In this research, Frost & Sullivan’s expert analysts thoroughly examine the following technologies: global system for mobile communication (GSM), general packet radio service/ enhanced data for global evolution (GPRS/EDGE), universal mobile telecommunications system/ high-speed downlink packet access (UMTS/HSPA), code division multiple access (CDMA 1x), and CDMA 2000-EVDO.
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Market Overview
3G to Significantly Influence Wireless Market Dynamics in South Asia
The south Asian wireless market is likely to witness stepped up activities, as new participants and technologies, especially 3G, enter and significantly influence market dynamics. The Indian Government has already auctioned 3G licenses and deployments are expected by early 2011. The Bangladeshi regulator, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), has also recently announced its plans to auction 3G licenses soon. Apart from intensifying focus on data in the saturated urban markets, 3G technology is also expected to play an integral role in bridging the digital divide by taking wireless broadband to the remotest corners of rural areas. The south Asian wireless market, which earned revenues of $5.09 billion in 2009, is expected to exceed $7.50 billion by 2015 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7 percent between 2009 and 2015. Growth is expected to be mainly driven by the rise in the number of new subscribers, as the overall mobile penetration in the region is still relatively low at 44.5 percent. “With an overall mobile penetration rate of less than 44.5 percent in 2009, the South Asian region’s large population of 1.55 billion still offers huge room for growth,” notes the analyst of this research service. “However, as subscriber growth is nearing saturation among the urban users, the next wave of new subscriber growth is expected from the rural areas, largely from prepaid users.”
Although the outlook for the market is bright, some impediments have restrained market momentum. “Declining ARPU remains a cause of discontent for the operators in the region,” says the analyst. “Pricing pressure, particularly on voice calls, and the growing popularity of prepaid packages have dented blended ARPU over the years.” This trend is expected to continue due to greater incremental subscriber share from rural areas. Moreover, with excessive number of operators, most of the south Asian markets are increasingly becoming competitive where price wars prevail. Intense competition is significantly affecting the profit growth trend experienced by the telecom sector.
To counter the declining ARPU that is a fallout of intensifying competition in the mobile services industry, participants in this space are finding new methods to reduce the cost of operating mobile networks. Outsourcing of construction as well as operation of networks has served to bring down operating costs significantly in the region. Infrastructure sharing has been another key contributor to cost reduction.
Technologies
The following technologies are covered in this research:
– Global system for mobile communication (GSM)
– General packet radio service/ enhanced data for global evolution (GPRS/EDGE) Universal mobile telecommunications system/ high-speed downlink packet access (UMTS/HSPA)
– Code division multiple access (CDMA 1x)
– CDMA 2000-EVDO
Article via ResearchandMarkets