Asia Pacific mobile revenues will top US$325 billion by 2013

Asia Pacific mobile revenues will top US$325 billion by 2013, as datarevenues drive growth

Released: 15th June 2009
Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that annual mobile service revenuesin the Asia Pacific region will increase by more than 16% from the endof this year to US$326.37 billion by end-2013, with growth driven bythe continuing rise in mobile subscriptions and greater usage ofdata services.

Asia Pacific: Mobile Market Analysis and Forecasts, a new report fromInforma Telecoms & Media, forecasts that the region’s total subscriptionsbase will increase by over 500 million, or almost 25%, from 2.03 billionat end-2009 to 2.53 billion at end-2013. “The robust growth will be spurredin particular by immense expansion in China and India, and alsohigher-than-expected subscription increases in developing markets such asIndonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam,” said Nicole McCormick, senioranalyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

Prepaid connections will continue to be the primary tariff option withthe number of prepaid users rising from 1.52 billion in 2009 to 1.97billion by 2013, accounting for approximately 90% of total net additions. Asa result, prepaid penetration in the regional will rise from 74.8% in 2009to 77.7% in 2013.

“Continued growth is being prompted in most markets by operators’expansion into rural regions, as mobile take-up in large cities reachesfull saturation," says McCormick. She adds that leading operators inChina and India already claim that more than 50% of their quarterly netadditions now come from rural customers.

However, with subscriptions growth being driven by low-income segments,ARPU is also being adversely affected. Informa Telecoms & Media forecaststhat blended ARPU across the region will fall from US$12.33 in 2009 toUS$10.88 in 2013.

At the same time, however, the region is fast becoming a powerhouse ofwireless-broadband take-up, with cheap HSPA services helping to fuel boththe growth in subscriptions and in revenues. As voice revenues level off, and actually decline towards the end of the period, data revenues areforecast to rise from 30% of total revenues in 2009 to 38% by end-2013.

Overall penetration will rise from 53.4% end-2009 to 64% end-2013, whileactual subscriber penetration increasing from 42.9 to 51.2% over the sameperiod. The difference in subscriber versus subscription penetrationshows the importance of multi-SIM ownership, with each subscriber owning,on average, 1.24 SIMs in 2009 and 1.25 SIMs in 2013.