Ericsson is confident that it will be able to capture a significant share of growth in South East Asia over the next few years. President of Ericsson South East Asia, Jan Signell, cited Ericsson’s unparalleled global experience in the network rollout and successful launches of 3G networks, as well as an equally strong track record in Managed Services, as among the key factors in helping Ericsson grow its market share in the region’s expanding market. Referring to the South-East Asian market as a “unique combination of emerging, expanding and advanced markets”, Signell said that Ericsson’s global strengths and long-term commitment to the region put it in a strong position to meet current operator challenges in all three market scenarios.
Briefing reporters and analysts in conjunction with CommunicAsia, Signell highlighted three key solutions developed specifically under its ‘Communication For All’ initiative to address the needs of operators in emerging markets -- where fast rollouts of cost-effective and scalable networks are of paramount importance to capture new and growing market segments. According to Signell, the solutions -- Capacity Growth, Expander and Managed Capacity – provide operators with lower total cost of ownership, allowing flexibility in time, capital and resources.
Capacity Growth allows profitable traffic growth by increasing capacity cost-efficiently, while Expander enables a 30-50 per cent reduction in the number of sites, thereby reducing capital and operating expenditure.
Elaborating on Managed Capacity, Signell said that this was based on a business model where Ericsson and operators share risks and rewards.
“In addition to managing operators’ networks, Ericsson is also ideally placed to offer network capacity when and where the customer needs it, including all infrastructure and service requirements. This is of particular significance as operators will have precisely the right capacity to meet demand. This way, they avoid running short of overspending on capacity, and network costs only increase when traffic (and revenue) increases,” he added.
Bharti in India is one of Ericsson’s customers who have opted for a Managed Capacity solution.
Signell anticipated strong subscriber growth to continue in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan. While subscriber growth is expected to be at a lower pace in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, operators are still expected to expand their networks to non-urban, lower-ARPU (Average-Revenue-Per-User) areas. In the higher ARPU segments, competition is expected to intensify as operators will start to compete for ‘share-of-the-wallet’ or consumer spend.
According to Signell, there will be an increased focus on new revenue streams from mobile data and high-ARPU mobile enterprise services in these markets, as well as in Singapore, adding that this was where Ericsson’s strengths would come into play.
“To grow their business, operators need to offer a wide selection of user friendly and attractive consumer services. This puts high demands on fast, simple and cost-effective service delivery and content lifecycle management.
“With strong consumer insight and business consulting capabilities, proven content and application partners, extensive managed services and systems integration experience, coupled with world-class technology and enablers, Ericsson is able to help operators turn ideas into reality in just one week,” he added.
Under a Managed Hosting solution, Ericsson takes the full responsibility for integration, around-the-clock maintenance of portals, enablers and applications, and supports a service launch, from identifying and creating services, testing and integration, to market segmentation and marketing.
Ericsson has a regional hosting centre in Singapore, which supports its Asia Pacific customers. SingTel in Singapore, Maxis of Malaysia and Sun Cellular of the Philippines are among Ericsson’s hosting customers in South East Asia.
Another key operator concern, according to Signell, is the ability to support new multimedia services, yet reducing Operating Expenditure (OPEX), while increasing network efficiency and performance.
“That is why operators are now looking at Mobile Softswitch and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), as well as Managed Operations – all of which are among our key strengths,” he added.
Where 3G is concerned, Signell said that 3G had taken off in Europe and parts of Asia, and that the momentum would soon begin to increase in South East Asia.
“Singapore and Malaysia has launched its 3G (WCDMA) networks, and the Malaysian Government has announced recently that two more 3G licenses may come up for bid in the country. We are also expecting increased 3G activity in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in the second half of 2005,” he added.
“Our involvement in our customer’s 3G networks has not just been entirely on the network side, but also on the service layer, hosting, and in many other areas which support our customers’ successful launch of new services.
“What we have learnt, too, from our experiences, is that 2G and 3G integration is a highly complex exercise, and it is important to get this right at the beginning as mistakes can prove to be very costly and may delay launch plans.
“However, the success of 3G is not just about the network, but having the right platform for the launch of fast-to-market services. The more successful operators are also the ones with simple, easy-to-understand product and price offerings,” he added.
Ericsson South East Asia comprises 13 countries, with primary focus on the high-potential markets of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It has a combined population of over 800 million, with a mobile subscriber growth of 2 million/month and mobile penetration rates ranging between 3.5%-93%. The total number of mobile subscribers in Asia Pacific is around 700 million, out of which 20% (137 million) are in South East Asia (as defined above).
Ericsson is shaping the future of Mobile and Broadband Internet communications through its continuous technology leadership. Providing innovative solutions in more than 140 countries, Ericsson is helping to create the most powerful communication companies in the world.
Read more at http://www.ericsson.com/press
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Azlyn Abdul Rahman, Media Relations, Ericsson South East Asia
Phone: +603-8314 6066
About Ericsson’s Managed Services
Ericsson has the telecom industry’s most comprehensive managed services offerings, covering management of day-to-day operations of a customer's network and can also include managed capacity for efficient network build out wherever and whenever needed, as well as hosting of applications and content management. As the undisputed industry leader in managed services, Ericsson has officially announced 46 managed services contracts with operators worldwide since 2002, including 22 operations and capacity contracts and 24 hosting contracts. In all current managed services contracts, excluding hosting, Ericsson is managing networks that together serve over 38 million subscribers worldwide.
Ericsson’s IPX (Internet Payment Exchange) solution reaches more than 360 million mobile subscribers and is connected to over 150 content providers worldwide.
About Ericsson’s 3G experience
Ericsson has an established track record and experience in 3G networks, being a supplier to 37 out of 64 operators who have launched commercial WCDMA services.
In South East Asia, Ericsson is the sole infrastructure supplier to SingTel’s WCDMA network in Singapore, and a key supplier to Maxis’ WCDMA network in Malaysia. In April this year, Ericsson signed a Managed Services (Operations) contract with Maxis to manage its 3G network.
