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Malaysia Telecommunications Report Q4 2010
Business Monitor International, Sep 2010, Pages: 96
The Malaysia Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Malaysia's telecommunications industry.
New data from the national regulatory authority, the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) – have been incorporated into our forecasts for 3G and wireless broadband subscriber growth. We have therefore taken the opportunity to marginally revise upwards our expectations for the broadband market and significantly ramp-up our short-term forecasts for the 3G sector. However, we do not expect rapid growth in 3G take-up to last for long as services will remain too expensive for many consumers outside the major cities.
The 3G data from MCMC show that there were 7.347mn subscribers at the end of 2009, much higher than the 3.72mn we had been estimating. This represents an increase of 68.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) from 4.366mn subscribers in 2008. It also shows that almost one quarter of mobile subscribers in Malaysia took 3G services at the end of 2009. Interest in services has been driven by intense pricing promotions and the bundling of high-end handsets and other mobile multimedia devices with postpay services. A rapidly growing number of mobile broadband subscribers (totalling at least 1mn at the end of 2009) will ensure that 3G growth rates remain strong over the next few years, although the comparatively high cost will deter more cost-conscious consumers for a while yet. We expect to see an 11.6% improvement in 3G uptake this year, with the growth rate slowing further in the period to 2014, when 28.9% of mobile customers will be on 3G networks. In the meantime, operators are beginning to trial 4G LTE technology, although it may not be until 2012/2013 that LTE becomes commercially available in Malaysia.
The regulator reports that there were 30.794mn cellular telephone subscribers in Malaysia at the end of March 2010. This represented a quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) rise of 2.2% and a y-o-y improvement of 9.2%. The regulator also believes that mobile penetration rose from 100.1% in March 2009 to 107.1% a year later. The regulator’s figures are a little different to the data reported by the country’s three main operators, which amounted to 31.019mn as of March 2010, a q-o-q rise of 2.9% and a y-o-y rise of 12.4%. The overall figure would be higher still if the activities of 2G reseller/3G operator U Mobile were included. We believe that the regulator’s figures exclude a small number of inactive subscribers. Much of the sector is dominated by the prepaid subscribers, leading to falling ARPUs, which leave operators vulnerable to falling profits. We are seeing efforts by operators to reverse this trend, largely in the form of strong investments in the mobile broadband sector, through the introduction of highspeed networks such as HSPA+ and even LTE trials taking place. This is encouraging, and postpaid customer growth during 2009 and H110 has outstripped that of prepaid, indicating that customers are willing to migrate if services are attractive and affordable. Furthermore, the greater introduction of compatible handsets and the arrival of smartphones should also encourage greater postpaid growth later on.
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