This annual report offers a wealth of information on the Mobile market in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. Subjects covered include:

Overview, Regional Characteristics, Growth and Market Structure
Mobile Technologies - GSM, CDMA, PCN/PCS
Mobile Services - Prepaid, fixed-mobile convergence, gaming
Mobile Data - Market Overview, SMS, MMS, PoC, GPRS, WAP
Overview on 3G
Mobile Satellite Services

This Asia market report covers 11 countries in the South East Asia sub-region. It takes an overall look at the mobile communication and mobile data markets in each of the countries. The markets covered include:

Brunei, as small wealthy nation in South East Asia, made early moves to ensure that it was delivering up to date telecommunications services to its population. The target of 100% digitalisation was achieved in 1995. Telecommunications throughout Brunei are of a high standard and the country ranks well in Asia in terms of penetration and infrastructure. Brunei’s mobile penetration, which stood at a reasonably healthy 32% by end-2001, continued to grow strongly and had hit 90% by early 2006.

With the level of encouragement from the government, it is not surprising then that the citizens of Brunei are strong consumers of telecommunications services. Despite this, if the country is to continue to maintain the pace required to be globally competitive, it must further restructure and generally liberalise the local telecom industry. For the moment things appear to have seriously stalled in this regard. Much more is required in the area of sector reform. The local market continues to be dominated by Jabatan Telekom Brunei (JTB), the incumbent telco that is still a division within the Ministry of Communications.

Cambodia's flourishing mobile market passed the one million subscriber milestone in late 2005 and was continuing to grow at a healthy annual rate of 25% into 2006. By March 2006, there were 1.24 million mobile customers, as mobiles continued to totally overshadow the fixed-line segment of the market. (Fixed-lines were languishing at around 40,000 subscribers.) Given the booming mobile market, it is maybe surprising to find other sectors of the market in the doldrums.

East Timor The tiny fledgling nation of East Timor experienced further political instability and outbreaks of violence in the first half of 2006. To the observer, the country had appeared to have got off to a solid start in rebuilding its entire infrastructure following the turbulence that ensued after the referendum of 1999. However, it remains difficult to assess the long term impact of the events of 2006 on such things as infrastructure building. Following the 1999 crisis, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) provided overall administrative and financial assistance during the period up until elections were held in April 2002. The United Nations finally completed its role in early 2005. The new government was looking to gain ongoing assistance from the international community in putting strong systems in place. Telecommunications remains an important priority under a newly established Ministry of Transport, Communication & Public Works. In July 2002, the East Timor government selected Portugal Telecom to be the lead partner in a consortium to operate Timor Telecom. The new operator replaced Telstra in March 2003 and set about expanding the countries telecom facilities.

Note: East Timor (also known as Timor Leste) is yet to be listed as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This makes it difficult to obtain official statistics on the country’s telecom sector.

Indonesia, The mobile market has continued to expand and by early 2006 the mobile sector was growing at close to 60%; the subscriber base had passed 45 million, up from 3.6 million subscribers just five years earlier. Whilst mobile penetration has quickly raced to almost 19%, there is enormous potential remaining for further growth in this market. With the government having already issued 3G licences to five operators - in what was a somewhat chaotic administrative process spread over some years - there was mounting interest in the direction the mobile market would take.

Laos The mobile phone market finally took off in early 2003, the number of subscribers increasing sevenfold over the next two years. The market was continuing to grow at an annual rate of more than 70% by March 2006 and there were almost 600,000 mobile subscribers (penetration of 10%) in the country.

The Lao telecom sector still has many issues to address. Despite the recent rapid opening up of the market, the regulatory progress continues to lag behind market development and has the potential to derail the progress already made if reform is not speeded up.

Malaysia Mobile penetration passed the 80% mark in early 2006, with subscriber numbers at the same time passing 20 million. This was up from only 2 million subscribers in 1998. Malaysia has the second highest mobile penetration in South East Asia after Singapore. The country’s mobile users have also been enthusiastic in their adoption of Short Message Service (SMS), with the regulator reporting that Malaysians sent more than nine billion SMS during 2005.

Myanmar's The country’s telecommunications is characterised by what can only be described as stunted development. The telecom sector is indicative of the overall state of the national economy. Myanmar’s official economic data is not considered reliable, making actual growth rates difficult to ascertain. However, it is reasonably evident that fixed telephone line penetration remains a lowly 1%, mobile services are prohibitively expensive and limited (mobile penetration of 2% is reported).

The Philippines There has been a rapid take-up of mobile services and, following on from that, a remarkably high national usage of the SMS has occurred throughout the country. Mobile penetration has grown quickly to have reached 40% (35 million subscribers) by early 2006, up from only 2.7 million mobile subscribers in the country in 1999. For the moment it looks to have reached a plateau at the 40% penetration level. Not surprisingly, mobile services have well and truly overwhelmed fixed-line services. Much of the recent growth in mobiles was coming from outside the main city of Manila, with the big operators, Globe and Smart, vying for lower income segments of the population by offering a range of cheap prepaid products. Further growth in the market will depend on the pricing and marketing strategies of the operators, as well as the growth in the country’s economy.

There appears to be considerable ongoing optimism in the Philippine telecom market as the sector has been contributing over 10% to the country’s GDP, boosted considerably by its mobile segment.

Singapore The mobile market in Singapore is characterised by its energy and innovation. Even as the growth has slowed somewhat – annual growth of 12% in early 2006, penetration at 106% - considerable effort continues to go into value-added products and services. At the same time, the market is approaching the future cautiously. The planning for 3G has been a case in point. The major operators and, to some extent, the government have been circumspect about the next generation of mobile telephony and the benefits it will bring. Despite this caution, all three mobile operators had launched 3G services by early 2005.

Thailand's telecom sector has been exhibiting a lot of energy, despite some economic uncertainty and questions about the government’s progress on a range of national projects. Over the last four or five years, the country’s mobile telephone market in particular recorded particularly strong annual growth rates. By early 2006, mobile penetration was approaching 50%, but the annual subscriber growth rate had slowed to less than 10%. Subscriber levels reached represented an eight-fold increase since 2000. The country has certainly been seeing the benefits of a liberalised market

Vietnam The country’s mobile market has been especially dynamic, growing at an annual rate of more than 50%. The strong growth was likely to continue, building on the 11.2 million mobile subscribers (penetration 12%) in the country by March 2006. As with most other Asian mobile markets, growth in Vietnam was substantially boosted by the introduction of prepaid mobile services.

2006 South East Asian Mobile Communications and Mobile Data Markets