PRLog (Press Release) – Mar 27, 2011 – This quarter, we updated our Malaysia telecoms forecasts for mobile and ARPU, with the latest data provided by the country's three operators: Maxis Communications, Axiata-owned Celcom and Telenor's DiGi for the quarter ended September 2010. We have also been able to provide the latest data for the number of mobile broadband subscribers and which appears largely to be aiding postpaid growth in the sector, which is dominated by the prepaid sector.
A noteworthy industry development this quarter was the announcement of Malaysia's first network sharing agreement between Celcom and DiGi, which should help save operating costs. While a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed in June 2010, the agreement has only become formal since January 2011. From 2012, the operators expect savings in the range of MYR100-200mn over the next few years and from 2015, savings of between MYR200-250mn. Celcom and DiGi will initially share 218 telecommunication sites each and will consolidate and upgrade more than 400 sites with a fibre transmission network by 2015.
Such agreements have been widely implemented in other regions and are particularly beneficial to operators who have prepaid dominated subscriber bases and therefore falling ARPUs, which prevents them from investing in the upgrade or development of their networks. As Malaysia's respective second and third operators, Celcom and DiGi should be able to leverage off this relationship and help tackle Maxis, which remains significantly ahead of the operators with a 41% market share.
In terms of developments in the broadband sector, while this is largely emerging from mobile broadband, of which there were an estimated 1.627mn subscribers as of September 2010 (up by 110% y-o-y) and as a result of the growing penetration of smartphone handsets, incumbent operator Telekom Malaysia is also keen to increase its UniFi subscriptions, which are based on its HSBB network. The operator is aggressively pursuing a greater number of UniFi subscribers, announcing in February 9th 2011, the promotion of a one-month free subscription and a waiver for the MYR200 installation fee, for customers who sign up online.
TM is taking proactive measures designed to acquire a greater number of retail subscribers ahead of competition in the fixed-broadband market with the arrival of Maxis, which currently only provides mobile broadband services. The operator had some 524,000 mobile broadband subscribers and noted that over the year, this had increased by 177%. By comparison, DiGi, Celcom and U Mobile noted y-o-y increases of 844%, 69% and 38%, respectively, with only Celcom reporting higher figures than Maxis on 803,000.
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