Bangkok--25 Dec--Ericsson
- By 2018, LTE subscriptions in Thailand is expected to reach around 30 percent of total mobile subscriptions compared to less than 10 percent in 2015. Smartphone subscription penetration is expected to be more than 90 percent by 2018, compared to around 60 percent in 2015.
- Mobile data traffic in the South East Asia and Oceania region will grow 14 times between 2015 and 2021, while population coverage for LTE will also increase to more than 75 percent in the region.
Findings from the latest edition of the Ericsson South East Asia and Oceania Ericsson Mobility Report show that mobile subscriptions in the South East Asia and Oceania region will exceed 1 billion by the end of 2015. That is about 14 percent of the total global market.
Camilla Vautier, President of Ericsson Thailand, says: "Smartphone subscriptions in the South East Asia and Oceania region are expected to more than double in the next six years, reaching around 850 million by 2021. The amount of data used monthly by each active smartphone will increase substantially from an average of 1.2 GB in 2015 to approximately 9 GB by 2021"
Camilla says: "In Thailand we expect smartphone subscriptions penetration will be more than 90 percent by 2018, compared to around 60 percent at the end of 2015. With recent 4G/LTE auctions, LTE subscriptions in Thailand will reach around 30 percent of total mobile subscriptions by 2018."
"With the continued rise of smartphones and an accelerated growth in data usage, the total mobile data traffic in the region will increase 14-fold by 2021. Alongside growing mobile broadband traffic, more consumers are migrating to higher data volume packages. In 2015, 40 percent of consumers in this region are subscribing to 2.1-5GB mobile broadband plans, compared to 30 percent in 2014. These results also show that around 40 percent utilize less than 50 percent of their mobile broadband plan data quota, revealing that many consumers might be subscribing to data plan not aligned to their usage pattern" Camilla adds.
The report shows that LTE population coverage in the region will be more than 75 percent by 2021. The transition from 3G to 4G will help operators to cope with the predicted immense data traffic growth and deliver the best user experiences with faster uplink and downlink speeds. LTE/5G subscriptions are forecast to gain momentum and surpass 500 million by 2021, driven by 3G migration and new services like VoLTE.
Three countries in this region, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, were among the top-ten highest net additions globally for mobile subscriptions in the third quarter 2015.
Countries in the region with the best network performance are Australia and Singapore, due to their leadership in deploying LTE and LTE Advanced. Ericsson analysis shows that data-intensive applications, such as HD video streaming, could easily be delivered by mobile networks in Singapore and Australia across the whole coverage area. LTE carrier aggregation in Australia has also enabled possible peak download speeds of up to 1 Gbps.
Camilla adds: "With recent successful 4G auctions, network performance in Thailand will be greatly improved over the coming years. In addition, the next wave of new smartphone users is expected to come from rural and remote areas.
The South East Asia and Oceania report is a supplement to the global Ericsson Mobility Report, and shares the differences across the South East Asia and Oceania region, including smartphone uptake, mobile broadband plans, and network performance.
Ericsson has also for the first time released a business appendix to its Ericsson Mobility Report, with an analysis of how operators around the world are growing their mobile business in a number of ways, by both capitalizing on the rapid uptake of mobile data, and exploring ways to improve their share in the ICT value chain.
The findings are structured into four categories (enablement, extension, expansion and exploration) that reflect the time and complexity aspects of implementing a business proposition. The intention of this report is to provide an overview of what is happening in the market, and discuss ways that operators are monetizing on the ever evolving demand for mobile services.