Asia voice market on fast track

Emerging markets already dominate the Asian market, with 84 per cent of total connections in 2008. This is set to increase, hitting 90 per cent by 2017.

Asian emerging markets include China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

In addition, the proportion of connections that are mobile across Asia will grow from 76 per cent to 83 per cent of total voice connections over the same period.

"What emerges clearly is that developed and developing markets in the Asian region are on different growth tracks", said David Kennedy, research director at UK-based Ovum. "Developed markets in Asia display similar growth patterns to developed markets in Europe, with fixed voice playing an ongoing role and tougher competition in mobile."

"But emerging markets are dominated by mobile voice, and this dominance will continue for the foreseeable future," he said. This means that mobile will dominate the overall voice market in Asia. The typical Asian voice connection is a mobile phone in an emerging market, and this is set to be the norm for the foreseeable future.

Ovum also made specific predictions for voice growth and decline in developed and emerging markets:

l Voice prices will continue to fall. Traditional fixed telephony prices will fall at an average 3.1 per cent per annum in developed markets and 3.4 per cent per annum in emerging markets between 2008 and 2017. In comparison, mobile voice prices will fall 5.8 per cent and 4.7 per cent annually over the same period.

l Voice revenues have peaked in developed markets. "We expect total voice revenues to decline 14.7 per cent between 2008 and 2017 in developed markets as price competition bites, especially in mobile", said Kennedy.

l In contrast, emerging market voice revenues will grow 47.6 per cent over the same period due to spectacular mobile connection growth, despite declines in mobile prices.