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 Africa

South African operators finally saw the implementation of mobile number portability (MNP) after facing numerous delays. Market leader Vodacom may already have felt the effects of the system after seeing a 1.7 percentage point fall over the quarter to reflect a market share of 59.1%, despite claiming a 74.7% share of the net additions market as of 9M06. Furthermore, its high churn rates, which were up by 147.1% y-o-y to 43% as of September 2006, also illustrated that its customer loyalty was slipping. However, its CEO Alan Knott-Craig stated that Vodacom had little to fear regarding MNP, with estimates that some 2,300 customers would join its network in December 2006, while just 230 customers planned to leave the operator. However, with Q406 traditionally a peak season in terms of growth and movement in the mobile market, combined with the entrance of Virgin Mobile South Africa as the country's fourth mobile operator, this may mean that Vodacom has more to lose. Meanwhile, MTN similarly remains unconcerned over the entrance of MNP, preferring instead to concentrate on the 3G market.

Here, the operator has managed to claim a substantial lead in the 3G market, with a 64.7% share as of June 2006 (latest figures to date). Vodacom has been keen not to be outdone in the NGN market, with its biggest quarterly rise to derive from its NGN user base, up by 51.6% over June 2006. In addition, with the market leader now able to pursue overseas acquisition targets, following a revision to the shareholder agreement it had in place with the UK's Vodafone Group, its domestic operations may take a back seat. With South Africa's mobile penetration rates forecast by BMI to reach 75% by YE06, the operator is keen to pursue more lucrative opportunities in the rest of the continent, where penetration rates on average stand at 10%. With MTN focused on 3G and Vodacom similarly caught up in overseas developments, this should leave both Cell C and Virgin Mobile with the freedom to grow their subscriber bases with the aid of MNP. This was partially reflected in Cell C's net additions performance over Q306, which illustrated that the operator had managed net additions of 106,000, after seeing a loss in its subscriber base over both 6M06 and 9M06.

While there have been no changes to the country's fixed-line forecast, the entry of Neotel, which officially launched on October 31 2006 and is to invest ZAR11bn in its networks over the next decade, could offset any falls in Telkom's fixed-line user base. As of September 2006, fixed-line growth continued to decline, with the latest subscriber numbers at 4.675mn, a 33,000 net loss over the past six months, and down by 1.2% y-o-y. The operator has already managed to garner interest from the corporate sector, with Cell C the first customer to place a call over its networks, while Vodacom and MTN have both routed some of their international calls over the operator's bandwidth. While the first stage of its strategy will focus on international traffic on behalf of other telecoms operators, which offer voice and data services to the corporate sector, residential usage is not expected to begin until March 2007. With number portability also beginning in the fixed-line sector, Telkom is already aware of the impact this could have on its operations, which led to its earlier decision to offer discounts for long distance and international calls by 10% and 9.9% respectively. However, until Neotel commences its residential services, it seems that Telkom's local call prices will remain unchanged, leading us to retain our existing forecasts of 4.85mn as of YE06.