Asia-Pacific regional overview: fixed and mobile markets

Markets in Asia-Pacific vary widely in size, development, penetration and regulatory environment. These differences continue to impact operator performance. This research aims to provide a high-level view of operators’ performance and regional development across the fixed voice, broadband and mobile sectors.

For the fixed market, this research focuses on the large, more developed markets in Asia-Pacific (Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan and New Zealand) and the fixed incumbents within these markets. All of these markets have high levels of fixed, mobile and (increasingly) broadband penetration. Additionally, all fixed incumbents in this survey operate both fixed and mobile networks, with the exception of KT and NTT, which are only partially able to leverage stakes in KTF and NTT DoCoMo respectively. In addition, Telkom Malaysia, driven by the increasing importance of its international mobile investments, has de-merged its fixed and mobile arms to accelerate growth of each entity.

On the mobile side, this research focuses on the ‘power player’ mobile operators in the markets mentioned above as well as the emerging markets of China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. ‘Power players’ are defined as large operators that have the ability to change the competitive environment of the market they operate in.

The operators reviewed in this research have different reporting periods and release varying levels of information at different times with multiple accounting standards. Where possible, full-year 2007 results using like-for-like comparisons have been used. Unless otherwise indicated, financial and KPI (key performance indicator) figures represent year-on-year comparisons with results for:

• Telekom Malaysia (TM), full year ending December 2007
• Telstra in Australia, half year ending December 2007
• Telecom New Zealand (TCNZ), half year ending December 2007
• SingTel in Singapore, nine months ending December 2007
• PCCW in Hong Kong, full year ending December 2007. Additionally, we have only included PCCW’s core business; PCPD is excluded.
• NTT in Japan, nine months ending December 2007
• Korea Telecom (KT), full year ending December 2007
• Chunghwa (CHT) in Taiwan, full year ending December 2007.

Average calculations in this report are based on all markets surveyed unless otherwise indicated.