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 South Korea

Non-voice revenues have become an increasingly important source of growth for South Korean mobile operators, as they face a saturated mobile market and diminishing voice revenues. This is despite our own decision to marginally downgrade our forecast for the mobile market (including 3G), with most recently available figures for the total mobile market stating that there were 40.036mn users as of November 2006. With previous quarterly net additions over the first nine months of 2006 averaging 454,000 users, we expect a total subscriber base of 40.236mn users, as penetration rates reach 84% by YE06. Indeed, only the 3G market offers any real room for growth, with the broadband market similarly saturated. 3G users accounted for 37.4% of the total mobile market, compared to Japan, which has over half of its population using 3G. To this end, both KTF and SK Telecom have raised their capex budgets for further HSDPA deployments in 2007, in the hope of encouraging further use of music, video and other data-rich services, while also launching HSDPA-enabled handsets during the year. KTF will spend an additional KRW400bn over 2007, while SKT has an HSDPA budget of KRW810bn. Meanwhile, LG Telecom is keen to operate a 3G network, beginning sometime in H107, although this is pending approval from the MIC.

While we have retained our existing forecasts for the broadband market, much like the mobile market it has suffered from saturation, leading operators to diversify into advanced technologies such as IPTV and WiBro, or, like Hanaro Telecom, to seek to develop a triple-play competitive advantage. Although Hanaro managed to report a fall in its broadband subscriber base, for VDSL, ADSL and cable modem subscribers, this, we believe, was due to its attention on developing a hanaTV service, launched in July 2006, and forming a vital part of its triple-play services. Of its hanaTV subscriber base of 44,362 users for Q306, 85% were existing broadband subscribers, with the remaining 15% new. Furthermore, the operator plans to commence IPTV services in 2007 with a consortium including KT and 50 other companies under the brand name of C-cube. KT has said that it will spend KRW140bn of its capex total of KRW2.8trn for 2007 on IPTV, while WiBro will also receive some KRW240bn of the capex total. Meanwhile, SK Telecom's WiBro service has attracted some 110,000 users as of November 2006.

South Korea suffered a one point drop in its composite scoring in our latest Business Environment Rankings table, placing it joint third with Taiwan as it totalled 42 points. Lying behind its inability to improve its score is the dampening growth in the NGN market. Unlike Taiwan and Singapore, there is relatively little potential for next-generation growth.