ASIA : China, India, and Korea accounted for 78% of total mobile subscribers in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) or APEJ region in 2005, up from 76% in 2004.

The total mobile equipment capital expenditure (capex) in the three markets of China, India and Korea increased 17% in 2005 to reach US$14.93 billion from US$12.76 billion in 2004. More details can be found in IDC’s latest report "China, India and Korea Mobile Carrier Capital Expenditure 2006-2010 Forecast and Analysis”. (Doc#AP204104N)

“The APEJ region is a world leader in 2G and 3G mobile services, broadband generic DSL (xDSL) access, long-haul optical transport, long-distance VoIP, and limited mobility services,” says Bill Rojas, Director ( above ) for Asia/Pacific’s Telecom Research. “China and India will continue to drive the bulk of fixed-line growth in the region but fixed-wireless substitution has tremendous potential in a number of markets including China, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines.”

IDC forecasts that total mobile network equipment capex for the three countries will increase to US$14.7 billion in 2010, but that could be larger depending on the outcome of licensing of 3G in China. Both China and India are still in the process of planning to issue 3G licenses. China has delayed issuing 3G licenses several times, as it wrestled with the different technical and economic tradeoffs of sinking large sums of capital into 3G UMTS and possibly CDMA2000 EV-DO networks.

If 3G licenses were awarded to China Telecom and China Netcom, there would be an additional US$1-2 billion worth of new mobile equipment capex invested in each year from 2007 to 2010. China Telecom may be in a better financial position to make larger investments in 3G than China Netcom, the latter of which has recently awarded several contracts for WiMAX equipment.

WiMAX trials and tests are also starting to be seen in both China and India. State-owned and integrated carrier, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. is planning to add 45 million GSM/3G lines and is also conducting various trials with WiMAX in search of the best technology for fixed wireless substitution to deliver Internet access and VoIP services.

Korea is the only market to have issued 3G licenses with KT Freetel (KTF) and South Korean Telecom (SKT) having already built Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) networks separate from their CDMA2000 1X EV-DO networks. SKT and KTF are both investing heavily in High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) to expand the service beyond Seoul to other cities across Korea. In contrast, Korea Telecom is concentrating its wireless expenditures in 2006 on WiBro and is expected to offer a dual mode CDMA2000 EV-DO/WiBro service in cooperation with its mobile subsidiary KTF.

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