Original telecommunications market research and telecommunications sector trend analysis for the national telecommunications industry.

Competitive intelligence, regional telecommunications company rankings and SWOT analyses on international and domestic telecommunications companies.

The Report provides industry professionals and researchers, operators, equipment suppliers and vendors, corporate and financial services analysts and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on the national telecommunications industry.

" The Asia Telecommunications Report is used for benchmarking industry views against BMI's independent forecasts; for market research and analysis of industry trends. It also provides competitive intelligence on leading companies. "
Chi-Wen Tsai, Managing Director, ROHDE & SCHWARZ Taiwan Ltd

Key Benefits of Report

-Benchmark BMI's Independent 5-Year Telecommunications Industry Forecast to test other views - a key input for successful budgeting and strategic business planning in the national telecommunications market.
-Target Business Opportunities & Risks in the Telecommunications Sector through our reviews of latest industry trends, regulatory changes, and major deals, projects and investments.
-Exploit Latest Competitive Telecommunications Intelligence & company SWOTS on your competitors and peers through company rankings by sales, market share, investments and leading products and services.

Executive Summary
Summary of BMI's key industry forecasts and trend analysis, covering ICT, fixed-line, mobile and internet markets, and headline news of key industry events from the latest quarter.

Market Overview
At-a-glance outlook of the structure, size and value of the industry, including an overview of key players and a snapshot of regional penetration rates for fixed-line, mobile and internet markets.

Business Environment Rankings
BMI provides a cross-border analysis of telecoms regulatory systems across regional markets, and their investor prospects, discussing the merits and downfalls of each country's business environment, and ranking them in order of competitiveness. The rankings take into account industry factors, such as Market Maturity, Growth Potential, Competitive Environment and Licensing Framework in addition to BMI's political and economic risk ratings.

BMI 5-Year Industry Forecast
Historic data series and 5-year forecasts to end-2012 for all key industry indicators (see list below), supported by explicit assumptions, plus analysis of key downside risks to the main forecast.

Fixed-Line Telephony - Telephone Lines ('000); Telephone Lines/100 Inhabitants;
Cellular Telephony - Phone Subscribers ('000); Mobile Phone Subscribers/ 100 Inhabitants; Mobile Phone Subscribers/100 Fixed Line Subscribers;
Internet Markets - Internet Users ('000); Internet Users/100 Inhabitants; Broadband Internet Subscribers ('000); Broadband Internet Subscribers/100 Inhabitants;
Multimedia Markets - PCs ('000); PCs/100 Inhabitants; TV households ('000s); Pay-TV subscribers ('000s); Pay-TV subscribers/100 inhabitants; Cable TV subscribers ('000s); Direct-to-Home Subscribers ('000s)
BMI 5-Year Macroeconomic Forecast
BMI forecasts for all headline macroeconomic indicators, including real GDP growth, inflation, fiscal balance, trade balance, current account and external debt.

Competitive Landscape & Rankings
Commentary on key operators highlighting ownership structures, latest available revenue figures, market share analysis and ARPU counts.

Company Profiles & SWOTS
Company profiles, including SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analyses, fully researched senior executives and contact details, business activity, leading products and services, and a record of all recent foreign direct investments and projects.

The Sector At A Glance

Key Insights On The Telecomunications Sector of China

China Mobile and China Unicom were unable to report any increases to their average revenues per user (ARPU) during the year ended June 2007. The gains made by both operators in terms of subscriber growth, with 47.463mn net additions to the market between YE06 and July 2007, have been driven by expansion into rural areas. However, this has encouraged a greater number of prepaid customers, reducing the contributions made by higher-value, postpaid subscribers. A higher proportion of prepaid customers has also resulted in lower consumption of operator services and limited traffic growth.

For now, it would appear that China's mobile operators are content with raising their subscriber figures, rather than increasing the quality (in revenue terms) of their customers. Having said that, we have seen value-added services (VAS) continue to rise as a percentage of total revenues, and believe that VAS stood near 20% as of June 2007. China Mobile has been making an aggressive push into the mobile internet sector, having developed its own wireless portal, Monternet, over the past two years. Subscribers to mobile internet have risen from 17mn at the end of 2006, to 44mn in H107, which is over a quarter of China's 162mn internet subscribers. As for China Unicom, the operator has been busying itself with the commercial launch of its mobile TV services, which could reach a value of US$36mn by the end of 2007 and grow to US$98mn on the back of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

With the award of 3G licenses approaching, we continue to witness developments across the sector, both on the operator and vendor sides. China Mobile is expected to trial its TD-SCDMA network in September 2007, initially limited to one city. Already the value of TD-SCDMA telecoms equipment has been rising rapidly, to around US$1bn in Q207. Naturally, the major recipients have been Chinese equipment vendors. ZTE took a 45.8% share of the market, followed by Datang on 27.2%. However, with the development of the two foreign 3G standards pending, some of the world's largest equipment vendors have also been adding to their production facilities, with Sony Ericsson adding a third factory. Operators have sought to obtain a foothold in this potentially lucrative market. South Korea's SK Telecom recently converted outstanding bonds into shares equal to a 6% stake in China Unicom.

Although China Unicom has not officially reported on these reports, it has been announced in the local media that the operator could be split into two, China Telecom (a CDMA standard mobile operator) and China Netcom (a 3G service provider), in the face of declining fixed voice revenues. This could see China Telecom acquire China Unicom's CDMA network, while China Netcom would be left with its GSM network. While this would indicate another step closer to the opening of China's hotly-anticipated 3G tender, it also falls into line with earlier industry restructuring carried out in July 2007. Local press reports state that China Telecom has no intention of obtaining China Unicom's CDMA network.

However, the fact that China Telecom recently hired an executive with mobile experience would suggest otherwise. Zhang Chenshuang was formerly a vice president of China Mobile.