Editorial Asian Telecommunications Market 1998 – The U$300bil. telecommunication market
In the past, 80% of all telecommunications reve-nue generated in Asia came from basic fixed services. This declined to 65% in 1997. Already this region has the highest proportion of its revenues in non-basic services of any world re-gion, even North America. However, rapid basic telecommunications expansion in China would eventually reverse that trend.
· while mobile services did not have as large a share here initially as in other parts of the world, they are experiencing huge growth;
· value-added residential services increased their share from 6.5% in the early ‘90s, to 12% now;
· total annual voice traffic growth in the region is expected to be between 10%-15%;
· value-added business services are expected to grow by 30% and overall data communications by 15%.
The Asian telecommunications market is worth over US$300bill., with international, long-distance and cellular services yielding the highest revenue. Growth in the region is expected to lie in cellular, international and value-added voice services.
China has embarked on a massive modernisation campaign to extend telephone lines. Levels of calling are still extremely low, less than two calls per person nationwide per year. China has several urban cellular systems which are ex-panding, and it is likely that by the end of the decade, the size of China, combined with the high priority being given to telecommunications, will make its growth a central driver to that of the entire region. Together with Japan, these two countries are expected to control more than 60% of fixed line revenues by 2005.
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