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 Switzerland

Given that Switzerland boasts one of the highest standards of living in the world, it comes as no surprise that its telecoms industry is highly developed. BMI's latest figures reveal high penetration rates in all sectors, particularly the broadband market, where the unbundling of the ‘last mile' connection is allowing alternative operators to compete more effectively with incumbent operator Swisscom.

However, Switzerland's mobile market has not performed as well as many of its regional peers in recent years. Penetration in 2005 was just 92.1%, which seems high until compared with the rates of 95%, 112% and 125% recorded in Germany, the UK and Italy respectively. BMI therefore believes that the Swiss market has room for future growth, although recent performance has been sporadic. Operators usually enjoy their busiest sales period during the final quarter of the year, but in 2005, subscriber growth actually slowed down during Q4. Growth during the first half of 2006 was steadier, with subscriber numbers up by 3.6%. This makes us confident that the mobile market is on course to reach our-year end forecast of 7.35mn subscribers. Not withstanding another slowdown in subscriber additions, BMI predicts that penetration will exceed 100% during 2007, rising to 111% by 2010.

One slightly surprising characteristic of the Swiss mobile market is that 3G services have been very slow to take-off. Given the highly developed nature of the Swiss economy, the popularity of internet services and consumers' considerable spending power, BMI would have expected Swiss mobile users to embrace 3G technology more enthusiastically. However, the response has so far been muted and we do not expect services to really take off until 2007. Even by 2010, we predict that less than 20% of the customer base will be using 3G services, compared with rates of 40-60% elsewhere in Western Europe. Part of the explanation for this may be the high cost of basic mobile services. Mobile market leader Swisscom Mobile consistently records average revenue per user (ARPU) levels of above EUR40, while for thirdranked Orange, this figure is over EUR55. As a comparison, rates of EUR25-30 are the norm across much of Europe.

Switzerland has not changed its position in BMI's Business Environment Rankings for Western Europe. However, an adjustment to our calculations has seen Switzerland gain some points for future growth potential while sustained economic growth has led to an improvement of its long-term economic risk rating. But as always, Switzerland is let down by the continued government ownership of a majority stake in Swisscom. A buyback of share capital and forthcoming capital reduction will see the government's stake fall from 62.4% to 58.4%, but following the parliament's rejection of privatisation plans earlier this year, we do not expect a sale any time soon.