Asia home to more than half world mobile connections by 2011 
ConvergenceAsia staff
13/11/2008

Independent advisory and consultancy firm Ovum has recently revised its global and Asia Pacific mobile forecasts. Ovum is forecasting connections in Asia Pacific (including China and India) to more than double from 1.4 billion in 2007 to 2.9 billion in 2013.

“This will mean that by 2011, Asia will be home to more than half of the world’s mobile connections (from 42 per cent in 2007),” said Nathan Burley, analyst based in Melbourne. In developed markets, drivers of connection growth include more multiple connections driven predominately by mobile broadband.

“However only a small proportion of connection growth will occur in developed markets,” added Burley.
In emerging markets, new prepaid subscribers will continue to drive growth as the cost of ownership continues to fall. Nathan said, “We continue to see only limited impact on connections from negative macro-economic conditions”.

Revenues will not grow as fast as connections, as overall ARPUs (Average Revenue Per User) fall especially in emerging markets. We do however still expect healthy revenue growth at an average annual growth rate of 9 per cent through to 2013. Data will also continue to grow as a proportion of industry revenue.

Despite housing more than half world connections, lower ARPUs across Asia will mean the region still accounts for less than a third of industry revenue by 2013.

Total connections by country:

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