"The market is fiercely contested because it is full of opportunities. We expect the total fixed-network business in the Asia-Pacific region to grow 6 per cent per year through 2008," he said.

In the global market, Siemens expects to achieve 5-per-cent growth in its fixed-line telephone network business next year, he told a seminar during the five-day International Telecom Union World 2006 forum in Hong Kong.

The ITU was established to standardise and regulate international radio and telecommunications.

Christoph Caselitz, Siemens's president of mobile networks, estimates that Asia will have almost 1.8 billion mobile subscribers in 2011, with more than 730 million of them in China.

Siemens Networks will merge with Nokia Networks Business Group to become Nokia Siemens Networks with around 60,000 employees.

The new company, headquartered in Finland, is expected to start operating next month.

Nokia executive Simon Beresford-Wylie was nominated as the new company's CEO, while Siemens executive Peter Schonhofer was appointed as its chief financial officer.

Unterberger said the union made Nokia Siemens one of the top three telecom network suppliers with revenues of ¤15.8 billion (Bt747 billion) in 2005.

Alcatel-Lucent, the product of a recent merger, stands as No 1 with ¤17.2 billion of revenue, followed by Ericsson Maconi with ¤16.2 billion.

"We're so close to No 1 and No 2. Our merger brings together total customers of more than 300 mobile-network and fixed-network operators," Unterberger said.

The main competitors of Nokia Siemens in Asia are Chinese network suppliers such as Huawei Technologies.

Unterberger realises that Huawei is strong in the Asian market as it can offer half the price of what Western suppliers offer but Siemens has focused on network innovation.

At the ITU World forum, Siemens showcased its next-generation radio system as the further development of the current 3G broadband wireless technology.

The system upgrades conventional cellular base stations to handle higher data transfer rates to meet the faster download demands of mobile-phone users.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation

Hong Kong