Emerging Asia-Pacific telecoms market: trends and forecasts 2022-2027

"There are sizeable opportunities to monetise the demand for mobile and fixed data connectivity in both high- and low-income countries in EMAP."

Revenue in emerging Asia–Pacific (EMAP), excluding China, will grow at a CAGR of 4.5% between 2022 and 2027, driven by FTTP take-up, mobile data user base growth and customers’ migration to top-tier mobile plans. China’s revenue growth will be slower – operators here will focus on non-traditional telecoms services due to market saturation.

In this report, we examine key trends and drivers, and provide comprehensive telecoms market forecasts for the region and for 13 individually modelled countries.

This report and the associated data annex provide:

• a 5-year forecast of more than 200 mobile and fixed KPIs for the EMAP region as a whole and for 13 key countries
• an in-depth analysis of the trends, drivers and forecast assumptions for each type of mobile and fixed service, and for key countries
• an overview of operator strategies and country-specific topics, in order to highlight similarities and differences by means of a cross-country comparison
• a summary of results and key implications for mobile and fixed operators.

Geographical coverage

Region modelled

Emerging Asia–Pacific (EMAP)

Countries modelled individually

• Bangladesh
• Cambodia
• China
• India
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• Myanmar
• Nepal
• Pakistan
• Philippines
• Sri Lanka
• Thailand
• Vietnam

Key performance indicators

Connections

• Mobile:
• total (handset plus mobile broadband, excluding IoT), total including IoT, business
• handset: smartphone, basic, smartphone share of handsets
• mobile broadband
• total, handset and broadband: 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G (and 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G share)
• total and handset: prepaid, contract and prepaid share
• IoT
• penetration: total, prepaid, contract, handset, smartphone, mobile broadband, IoT

• Fixed:
• voice: narrowband, VoBB, dial-up
• broadband: ADSL/VDSL, FTTP/B, cable modem, FWA, 5G FWA, other technologies, total business connections
• penetration: voice, broadband (business sites and households)

• Pay TV
• operator, traditional

Traffic

• Outgoing minutes (fixed and mobile), MoU
• Cellular data and messaging traffic

Network-independent metrics

• GDP
• Population
• Households
• Business sites
• Exchange rates

Revenue/ARPU/ASPU

• Mobile:
• total
• share of GDP
• per capita per month
• prepaid, contract, prepaid share
• 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G (and 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G share)

• Fixed:
• total (retail plus wholesale)
• share of GDP
• per capita per month

Retail revenue

• Mobile:
• total
• share of GDP
• per capita per month
• per GB
• 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G (and 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G share)
• voice, voice per minute
• data, data per GB 
• handset: total, voice, messaging, data, prepaid, contract, prepaid share
• mobile broadband
• IoT

• Fixed:
• total
• share of GDP
• per capita per month
• voice
• dedicated connections
• broadband: ADSL/VDSL, FTTP/B, cable modem, FWA, 5G FWA, other technologies

• ICT services

• Pay TV
• operator, traditional

Wholesale revenue

• Mobile
• Fixed

ASPU

• Mobile:
• total
• voice
• data
• mobile broadband
• IoT
• handset: total, prepaid, contract, voice, messaging, data

• Fixed:
• voice
• broadband: ADSL/VDSL, FTTP/B, cable modem, FWA, 5G FWA, other technologies

ARPU

• Mobile:
• total
• prepaid, contract
• 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G