A special report from Global Insight, the world's leading company for economic and financial analysis and forecasting, compared the world's 20 leading developed and emerging markets between last year and 2011.

The report predicted that over the next five years, market penetration of wireless services would expand from 34.8 per cent to 69.1 per cent in China and from 13.4 per cent to 31 per cent in India.

It said China would also outpace the other 19 markets in terms of broadband growth, accounting for more than one-third of the 350 million-plus new broadband subscriptions anticipated over the next five years.

By 2011, China, with broadband revenues of more than US$19 billion (Bt661 billion), will surpass Japan as the world's second-largest broadband market.

However, the United States will continue to maintain its position as the world's largest mobile-phone and broadband market by revenues over the forecast period.

"The bulk of the revenues for the sector will still come from the developed markets. Another notable conclusion is that the so-called death of the landline has been overstated, even if traditional landline revenues will take a massive hit," said Julian Watson, director of Global Insight Telecom Products.

 Watson was the author of the report, called "Substitution Shakes Up the Telecoms Sector."

More than $50 billion in revenues will be lost worldwide over the forecast period, due to declines in fixed-line subscribers and the migration of voice traffic to mobile-phone and Voice over Internet Protocol networks, said the report.

A 4.5-per-cent decline is predicted in traditional fixed-line accesses as growth in the Chinese and Indian markets fails to offset the erosion of traditional accesses in markets like Japan, South Korea and Europe.

In those advance economies, there is already an extensive migration of accesses from fixed lines to mobile phones, the report said.

The Nation

NEW DELHI