Outsiders in a telco world
The acceleration in the kind of competitors coming into what people felt was traditionally the telco space. This has driven a new competitive atmosphere, a new challenge to operators to either become more efficient and focus on the customer or become dinosaurs and die. There's been a tendency in the past for telcos to focus too myopically on the network, which is just one part of the story.
For example, Google is coming in and investing in cable systems but they're not providing network services to anybody - they're driven by marketing and eyeballs and advertising, and they're building or investing in infrastructure where they think they need more capacity or speed or lower costs to drive that core business where they really make their money.
- Byron Clatterbuck, SVP of Global Transmission Services, Global Carrier Solutions, Tata Communications
From convenience to necessity
The way in which the world communicates has changed more in the last decade than in all history.
In 1999, more than a century after its invention, fewer than one in six people had access to a telephone of any kind. Now seven in ten people have a mobile phone. According to an IBM survey, after their homes most consumers list mobile and broadband as the next two essentials they are most unlikely to give up. In emerging markets, the mobile has even become the single most transformative tool for development - delivering public information and advisory services to rural communities as well as mobile payments and money transfer services where banking services are relatively under-developed.
- Rob van den Dam, Global Telecommunications Industry Leader, IBM Institute for Business Value
ARPU drops, penetration soars
The most significant development in Asia-Pacific telecom market is the shift in the business model, with tariffs plunging and penetration soaring. The business model has changed from high ARPU, low penetration to low ARPU with significant growth in penetration. Between 2004 and 2008 on average, ARPU for APAC has gone down by about 35%. Meanwhile, penetration has increased 57% annually (from 2000-2008) while the average ebitda margin is still at a health level of 40.8% (2008).
In Indonesia the most significant change was the shift from coverage to price. In addition, open regulation allows more competitors to enter the market. This allowed the cost of communication to decrease significantly from one of the most expensive to one of the cheapest in the world.
- Hasnul Suhaimi, PT XL Axiata president director
Wireless changes everything
The rapid development in the telecoms sector in the past 20 years has not only significantly changed the very fabric of how business is conducted, but also dramatically altered people's lives and behavior. Just look at the incredulous growth of mainland China's mobile subscriptions - from 20,000 in 1990 to a whopping 747 million as of the end of 2009. The mobile broadband evolution has further expanded opportunities beyond what we could have possibly imagined 20 years ago, and this has helped push the technology envelope closer to realizing the vision of an all-communicating world.
The competition landscape has also changed tremendously - starting with 10 players back in the 1990s, There are all but five major players, two of which are China-based companies, left in the industry today.
- Mats Olsson, Head of China & North East Asia, Ericsson
Global, mobile and virtualized
The three major business trends are companies going global, going mobile and going virtual. Half of the sales of the companies on the S&P 500 come from operations outside the US. The number of mobile workers worldwide exceeds 400 million. Mobility creates many new opportunities, but also new challenges, such as the need to give employees on the go access to networks and applications, and to do that on a wide and growing range of wireless devices. Advanced communications networks allow companies to connect their computing capabilities anywhere in the world. When computing resources become virtual, companies can manage key business functions, regardless of location, in new ways.
- Bernard Yee, Vice President, AT&T Asia Pacific
MORE ARTICLES ON TELECOM ASIA 20TH ANNIVERSARY:
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- Where are they now?
- A lonely night in Singapore
- Telecom Asia: life begins at 20