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Malaysia Telecommunications Report Q1 2011
Business Monitor International, Dec 2010, Pages: 98
Business Monitor International's 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.
This quarter, we have extended our Malaysia telecoms forecasts for mobile, fixed-line and broadband out to 2015. Within these forecasts, both mobile and broadband have been revised upwards on the back of stronger Q210 growth in subscription numbers. Furthermore, we have ramped up fixed-line growth in the short term but then expect to see a decline over the medium term, as more people opt for mobile broadband accesses. Although rising marginally (by 41,000 net additions) during Q210, internet user numbers remain largely flat.
Significantly this quarter, Malaysia's deputy prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced that broadband penetration had now passed the government’s 50% target for end-2010. It was reported that Yassin claimed the result was achieved after cooperation between the public and private sectors. From mid-September, broadband penetration in Malaysia was 53.5%.
Also this quarter, new data from the national regulatory authority – the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) – have been incorporated into our 2015 forecasts for 3G and wireless broadband subscriber growth. In the short term, we are forecasting a significant ramp-up in 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. This represents an increase of 68.3% year-onyear (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 postpaid services. A rapidly-growing number of mobile broadband subscribers (totalling at least 1mn at end-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 improvement in 3G uptake for 2010, to 25.2%, with the growth rate slowing further in the period to 2015, when 29.0% of mobile customers will be on 3G networks. In the meantime, MCMC has awarded 4G spectrum in the 2.6GHz band to nine operators. The frequencies will help the winning operators deploy 4G technology and offer advanced mobile services in Malaysia.
The regulator reports that there were 31.671mn cellular telephone subscribers in Malaysia at the end of June 2010. This represented a quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) rise of 2.1% and a y-o-y improvement of 11.7%. The regulator also believes that mobile penetration rose from 103.8% in June 2009 to 110.1% a year later. Much of the sector is dominated by the prepaid subscribers, leading to falling average revenue per user (ARPU), 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.
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