Telecommunications incumbents made a comeback across Asia–Pacific in 2007, thanks to refocused business units and the success of mobile and broadband products.
Analyst firm Ovum said many incumbents realised success by focusing their business on customer segments, such as consumer or enterprise, forgoing the traditional technology-based division of mobile, fixed and broadband units.
Growth in mobile and broadband products also aided incumbent growth.
“Average growth in both broadband revenues and mobile connections and revenues increased in 2007. There is no slowdown,” said Nathan Burley, analyst at Ovum.
In particular, mobile data revenue was driven by increased adoption of devices utilising 3G mobile networks.
“3G is dominating net additions in developed markets while 2G connections are now declining,” Burley said.
However, broadband upgrades are not having the significant impact on revenue that these telcos hoped.
“Traffic and speed requirements are growing and users are upgrading to faster speeds such as ADSL 2+, VDSL and FTTx, yet often without paying more — average revenue per user (ARPU) is relatively flat,” Burley said.
2007 also marked the first year that the broadband and mobile data markets were strong enough to compensate for a drop-off in traditional PSTN revenues, which continued to slide.
