This report comprises statistical tables only.
183 tables are provided on a country by country basis, with a brief introduction.
Some of the data is not current, but was the latest available at the time of publication.35 countries are covered including: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.(Approx.
number of pages: 76)Researcher - Peter EvansCurrent publication date: October 2006 (1st Edition)Next publication date: October 2007Executive SummaryAfter a decade in which Asia’s mobile industry has been one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world, in relative terms a slowdown has occurred, especially in many of the leading national markets in the region.
By March 2006, the region had accumulated 850 million mobile subscribers.
After a period where annual subscriber growth rates have been well in excess of 50%, the rate has slowed to between 20% and 30%.
It was running at close to 25% coming into 2006.
At the same time, overall regional penetration had reached only 23% by March 2006, suggesting that there is still a lot more room for growth.Over the past decade, most of Asia has continued to embrace mobile technology in its various forms, seemingly prepared to shrug off the impact of regional and global economic slowdowns.
That is not to say that the Asian market has been without pain.
Many Asian operators followed their counterparts in the US and Europe and over the years we have seen mergers and restructurings, refinancing, layoffs; etc, as the players responded to difficult times.
And through all this, Asian consumers have continued to acquire and use mobile phones and, more particularly, have been big adopters of new products and services.A case study in the resilience of the regional markets has been Indonesia.
A country seriously affected by economic turmoil in the region in the late 1990s, Indonesia saw its mobile market grow by barely 16% in 1998, but soared more than 100% in 1999.
The annual growth rate continued to be up to 60% right through to 2005.
Coming into 2006, it was maintaining this rate of expansion and, by March 2006, the country had 45 million mobile subscribers at a penetration of 19%.As noted already, Asia has not only been dynamic in terms of growth; it has also been a leader in innovation with such products as NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode in Japan and the widespread application of Short Message Service (SMS).
It has also offered a useful test bed for the introduction and development of Third Generation (3G) services in their various forms.
The innovation was continuing with DoCoMo launching its mobile credit card service in early 2006, in what is again likely to be yet another leading market move.