The key takeaway at Huawei's analyst (and media) day last week is the company's acknowledgement that the heady days of double-digit growth for its carrier network biz (representing 73% of total revenue) are over, and that its enterprise and consumer device groups will be the growth engines going forward.

Telcos' retail revenue in developed Asia-Pacific markets, where mobile penetration is well over 100%, is set to fall 0.4% annually over the next five years. According Analysys Mason, overall annual revenue is expected to fall from $217 billion to $213 billion during the period.

In light of that forecast, Huawei sees its carrier ...    

At the Broadband World Forum Asia event in Hong Kong yesterday, KT's EVP Tae-Yol Yoo was miles ahead of the other speakers in his candor, realism and likely accuracy of his forecasts.

His slide entitled "Rapidly collapsing legacy services" neatly summed up telcos', and specifically KT's, predicament:

-- KT's PSTN revenue has dropped from $5.4 billion in 2008 to $2.7 billion in 2012-- Its mobile voice revenue fell from $6.2 billion in 2010 to $5.2 billion last year -- a 16% drop; that's despite the launch of LTE in 2011-- OTT messaging (mostly KakaoTalk) in Korea has jumped from 100 million daily ...    

In trying to quantify the gains the internet has brought to society, last week's Free Exchange column in the Economist discussed the concept of the "consumer surplus", which is the difference between what a consumer is willing to pay and actually pays. For example, if a person would pay $50 for internet service and only has to pay $30, that results in a $20 surplus.

This non-monetary benefit, the author explains, doesn't show up in GDP figures. The article points to research by Shane Greenstein of Northwest University and Ryan McDevitt of the University of Rochester that estimates that in 2006 ...    

Day 1

Hong Kong Broadband Networks Niq Lai: "We want to be a big fat dumb pipe. We encourage OTT usage.

"If you look at our cost basis, we charge about 2 cents per megabyte per month -- that's less than 1% the cost in Australia or China. Hong Kong residents enjoy about the best value of broadband in the world. If you look at the pizza index, in most societies the cost of broadband will buy you four family-size pizzas. In Hong Kong it only gets you one pizza.

"And we are by far the most profitable return-on-equity company in Hong Kong ...    

Choice quotes from insiders and outsiders at the Mobile World Congress last month:

"Voice is God's gift to humanity. It's what differentiates us from the animals. And we position voice at zero -- you don't have to pay for voice. Voice is dead."

- Hakam Kanafani, group CEO for Turk Telekom

"Openness is not something to be afraid of. There are lots of business models available. But openness is also about being open to innovate."

- Jolla CEO Marc Dillion (launched Sailfish at MWC)

"The mobile industry has had good luck that the OTT players came in and created fantastic services. Look at what Facebook ...