Qualcomm expects Southeast Asian 3G usage to increase in 2 years
Qualcomm is hoping that its 3G usage in Southeast Asia will boost considerably in the next two years.
According to John Stefanac, President of Qualcomm Southeast Asia and Pacific, the uptake of 3G would be driven by social networking and e-commerce and would see 3G usage about triple to 3 billion in 2014 from the current 1.2 billion.
Three-fourths of total broadband connections will come via mobile handset in the next two years, in emerging markets.
Hutchison Port to raise $5.4 bn in Singapore listing
Hutchison Port Holdings Trust is reportedly planning to raise US$5.4 billion in a Singapore listing, making it the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in Southeast Asia.
Owned by tycoon Li Ka-shing, the trust will own port assets in Hong Kong and mainland China under Li’s Hutchison Whampoa.
Cornerstone investors include Capital Research & Management, Paulson & Co and Lone Pine Capital who will invest US$634 million, US$350 million and US$186 million in the IPO, respectively.
The last offering of this scale in Singapore was Singapore Telecommunications, which raised US$4 billion in 1993. Hutchison, which also operates the Watson’s drugstore chain as well property and telecom assets, is listing its port assets in Singapore because trusts cannot be listed in Hong Kong.
Spice i2i to acquire Indonesia’s Selular Group (Singapore)
If sources are to be believed, Spice i2i Ltd. is set to acquire Indonesia’s Selular Group for US$175 million. The person added that Morgan Stanley advised the owners of Selular on the sale.
The Singapore-based mobile Internet Company has been expanding its presence in Southeast Asia, and in December acquired Thai mobile wholesaler NewTel Corp. for an undisclosed sum.
Selular, an unlisted family-owned company founded by Zulkarnaen Tanzil in 1990, distributes mobile handsets and operates the Selular Shop retail chain.
A Selular Group spokesperson declined to confirm the report but stated that Spice i2i is among several bidders they’ve talked to.
Asian smartphone sale triples in Q3
Asian consumers are spending almost as much money on smartphones as on feature and basic phones, according to a survey conducted by GfK group.
The research firm’s survey covered ASEAN, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea countries. According to the company, consumers bought 4.7 million smartphones worth $1.48 billion in the quarter, compared to just 1.27 million in the same quarter last year. While just one in every five phones sold was a smartphone.
According to Gerard Tan, GfK Asia regional account director for telecom, smartphones are the key drivers of the telecommunications industry at this moment. The competition is also intensifying among the handset platforms, with Symbian under threat from the Android OS, which posted strong growth in the second and third quarters.
Tan added that their Q3 report shows that Android has recently overtaken Symbian as the most popular smartphone OS in the context of Asia as a whole, in both value and unit sales. Smartphone OS competition was at its most intense in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, with market share fluctuating in response to vendor sales initiatives.
Android started escalating at the beginning of 2010 and overtook iPhone OS, the second most popular platform, in the second quarter. In Southeast Asia, Symbian still dominates despite gradually losing market share to Android, RIM and iOS.
Qtel H1 Profits rise by 9%
Revenues for the Qtel Group for the first half increased by 13.7% to US$3.6 billion, compared to US$ 3.1 billion the last year. The profits stood at US$0.494 million from US$0.439 million a year ago. The Group’s consolidated customer base stood at 66.6 million, compared to 51.4 million a year ago.
Qtel’s EBITDA performance was strong -US$ 1.730 billion, up 14.6 % resulting in an EBITDA margin of 48% and a progress of 2 % from last year.
According to the Chairman of the company, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, Qtel has verified that the company can turn challenging investments and market situations to their advantage, as they continue to deliver shareholder value. The performance in core territories such as Kuwait and Qatar shows that the company is capable of driving progress in competitive markets. The performance in Indonesia also continues to improve, as they unlock the potential of this key investment in Southeast Asia.
Vimpelcom building a solid South East Asian Cluster – Boris Nemsic, CEO Vimpelcom.
VimpelCom will pay about $66 million for Millicom’s 78 percent stake in Millicom Lao Co. Ltd. The remaining 22% of Millicom Lao Co., Ltd. is owned by the Government of the Lao PDR.
VimpelCom’s CEO Boris Nemsic describes the deal as, “the next logical step in our international expansion strategy” and one that “fits perfectly into our strategy of building a solid Southeast Asian cluster.”
VimpelCom already has mobile operations in Vietnam and Cambodia, having launched services in both markets in July 2008. It holds a 40 percent stake in a JV established with state-owned GTEL in Vietnam. In Cambodia, it owns 90 percent of Sotelco.
Laos has a population of 6.5 million people and low mobile penetration estimated at around 23%, thus making it attractive for Vimpelcom and an obvious choice for acquisition.
The Phenomenon Called Indian Mobile Market Growth
The Indian mobile market is on a high growth trajectory. I was in two different Indian cities last week – part of my five day-five city tour across Asia. While in India, I was told by my colleagues that the mobile telephone network connectivity has become so bad that connections are dropping often.
I was in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for a day and during a discussion with friends, a Malaysian expert told me that the prospects of two major Malaysian telecom operators look good owing to their investments in India.
I was in a lunch meeting with a senior executive of a major Southeast airline the week before in Singapore – the most talked about topic over lunch was the advent of Indian aviation players creating ripples in the market. I was floored by the experience flying Jet Airways during the Chennai to Kuala Lumpur flight. My colleagues ask me to hold judgement till I get to fly Kingfisher. I am not someone to be impressed so easily – my frequent flyer statement shows several hundred thousand miles with none other than Singapore Airlines. It is very likely aviation shall do an impressive repeat of the success of the mobile industry.
Let’s look at the telecom scene: Southeast Asian telecom operators have made significant investments in Indian mobile service players. These players took a financial stake in established growing businesses. Maxis, Malaysia’s largest telecom player has invested in Aircel, and Singtel has invested in Bharti, the largest mobile player in India. As these players slug it out, Maxis reports that Aircel added 588,000 new subscribers during the second quarter alone, which is more than double Maxis’ achievement in Malaysia. The other Malaysian player, Telekom Malaysia, is investing in the third Indian Indian player – Spice communications. All the three are aggressively expanding their Indian opoerations.
Monthy subscriptions inching towards six million additions per month – 5.9 million of them – are new mobile subscriptions, making India’s net addition the highest in the world, overtaking that of China – though the penetration levels may be lower. This New York Times article shows that china added 5.1 million subscribers, so the Indian run rate is 15% ahead of that of china.
Look at the growth – around 125 million subscribers have signed for mobile services in less than 15 years since the services were launched in the country. India believes that six or seven million monthy new subscriber additions are possible. Clearly liberalization and foreign investments all are helping the country in a big way – after all, the Indian mobile subscription rates are amongst the lowest in the world and handset makers like Nokia are helping the cause by coming in with low cost models and in the process helping India create high tech manufacturing clusters in places like Sriperumpudur, India’s likely answer to Shenzhen.
Three types of operators are alreasy investing here: the OEMs like Nokia, Motorola, the EMSs like Flextronics and Foxconn, and the component manufacturers who work with the OEM and EMS players. Dell is the recent addition planning to set up a manufacturing shop there. It’s the most talked about thing in the tech sector today – some of the largest telecom-related opportunties for system integrators/service players are available in India.
Clearly opening up of the economy and the progress of the technology world is helping India advance faster and better – the only eyesore is the Indian infrastructure. I do not want to write about my experience in the Bangalore airport clearing baggage or the time that it took for me to clear immigration on my return via Chennai.
Source- http://blogcritics.org
