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 Germany

In the first nine months of 2007, the number of German mobile subscribers grew by 8.9% to reach 93.292mn. BMI estimates that the sector grew by 9.6% for 2007 as whole, which means that 2007 was a stronger year for mobile customer growth than 2006. Likely reasons for the increased subscriber growth in 2007 include the impact on the sector of an increasing number of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), as well as the emphasis which major operators such as T-Mobile have placed on prepaid growth; we believe that both of these developments have contributed to the trend towards multiple SIM ownership and to an increasing number of inactive prepaid mobile users.

Ultimately, BMI expects to see new mobile subscriber growth beginning to tail off in the near future, and we predict that market saturation will be accompanied by consolidation in the MVNO market. Although we predict that 2008 will see a 6.4% increase in subscriber numbers, we anticipate a sharp slowdown in customer growth from 2009 onwards. We predict that the number of German mobile subscribers will rise to above 107mn by the end of 2012 (with a penetration rate of 129%). Long-term, the country's mobile operators will put increasing emphasis on building their more lucrative contract customer base and on promoting and improving the quality of 3G services. We believe that there were around 11.5mn 3G subscribers in Germany at the end of 2007, which is equivalent to 12.2% of the total mobile user base. By 2012, we predict 34mn 3G users, or just less than 32% of total mobile subscribers.

Although Germany's broadband market continues to manifest steady growth, concerns remain about the regulatory protection which the German government has extended to Deutsche Telekom's VDSL network. The government supports the operator's claims that it should not have to share its infrastructure with competitors for a set amount of time. Many believe that the incumbent continues to wield considerable advantage within the country's broadband market. In August 2007, Deutsche Telekom started to offer IPTV services over its ADSL2+ network. Since its introduction in October 2006, the incumbent's IPTV service has only been available over its limited VDSL network. The provision of IPTV over ADSL has significantly increased the telco's geographical coverage, with 17mn households in 750 German cities due to be covered by the ADSL2+ network by the end of 2007, compared with the mere 36 cities to which the VDSL network extended. Meanwhile, in October 2007, one of Deutsche Telekom's largest competitors, Vodafone-owned Arcor, launched its own IPTV package. 'Arcor-Digital TV' was initially made available in 51 towns and cities. Arcor is the third German telco to offer IPTV, following in the footsteps of Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia subsidiary HanseNet, which launched its 'Alice IPTV' service in May 2006.

Germany sits in third place in our new set of Business Environment Rankings table for Western Europe. Although the country receives relatively strong scores for country risk and for the state of its telecoms market, its overall score remains compromised by its inadequate regulatory independence.