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 Malaysia

Growth in Malaysia's telecoms sector will be powered by greater consumer interest in high-speed broadband internet access. The government has played its part in this development through its National Broadband Plan. Malaysia's regulator will also play an integral role in supporting this growth through its award of a number of WiMAX licences later in 2007. Consumer interest, government support and regulator encouragement all pulling together has led BMI to forecast an annual average 130% growth over the next five years in the number of broadband subscribers in Malaysia with over 7mn customers by the end of 2011.

Meanwhile, fixed-line penetration should fall to below 15% by the end of the decade, resulting in a 7% decline in the number of fixed lines in service over the next five years. One only has to look at Telekom Malaysia's latest available (at the time of writing) quarterly results to see the problems. The operator's fixed-line and data revenues contributed just 41% of the operator's total consolidated revenue in September 2006, a sharp fall from 51% just 12 months earlier. At the same time, Telekom Malaysia was able to boast a 74% y-o-y growth in broadband subscribers to 732,000. Interestingly, the operator's domestic mobile revenues were static, whilst revenues from its foreign operations now represent a quarter of the company's total revenue, up from just 10.5% in September 2005. In particular, Telekom Malaysia has found success in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Domestic mobile growth is slowing in Malaysia as the market reaches saturation. The enforced registration of all prepaid SIM cards has also impacted growth in the short term, with many inactive customers failing to register and therefore being discounted. This had a huge impact on Celcom's subscriber base, in particular, which actually contracted by 3% during Q306. BMI projects limited growth, with some 27mn mobile subscribers by the end of 2011 accounting for a penetration only just under 100%. We have been cautious in our forecasts for 3G growth, due largely to a lack of data. Even with such caution, we project that Malaysia will have more than 5mn 3G mobile subscribers by the end of our five-year forecast period, representing about one in five of all cellular subscribers at the time. In terms of market share, Maxis remains Malaysia's cellular market leader with just over 40% of the market, ahead of Celcom on about 34% and DiGi on 26%.

BMI has Malaysia once again in sixth position in our Business Environment Rankings. Politically and economically, Malaysia remains sound as an investment prospect. The government is looking to make it even more attractive by cutting corporation tax levels to 26% by 2008. Inward investment is important to Malaysia's telecoms market, which cannot afford to lose strategic investors like Telenor. Perhaps this is why the government has been so lenient towards the operator concerning its foreign ownership limits, giving it another year to reduce its 61% stake in DiGi to the required 49%.

Malaysia remains a competitive telecoms market, with Telekom Malaysia coming under more pressure from alternative providers in the fixed-line and broadband markets. The domestic mobile market remains competitive, and this will only intensify with the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP), providing more good news for the consumer.