Now Reliance Communications Gets Serious about Mobile Data Business
In its FY13 annual report Reliance Communications expects data and broadband services to be the new driver after multi years of voice leadership. While voice penetration of >70% has been achieved, that for broadband remains abysmally low at <1%. According to various market estimates, data & broadband services can grow ~7x from current Rs50bn to Rs350bn over the next 4‐5 years.
The biggest deterrents to 3G adoption stem from high handset and data pricing in our view but situation could be changing in the past few months. Device prices have (more…)
China’s monthly mobile data usage hits 123MB – Unicom Leads
According to MIIT, China’s average monthly mobile data usage per mobile Internet user reached 122.8 Mb in 1H13, up 36.6% YoY. Data usage from mobile music and video, mobile gaming, and mobile literature increased 14.0%, 18.9%, and 28.7% from the end of 2012, respectively.
The mobile data usage in China grew >35% YoY to 123MB per sub per month. While the growth rate was robust, the overall usage levels still remain far below the average in Developed Markets (1-2GB) and even other EMs such as Malaysia and Thailand (250-500MB). This remains the key driver of our positive view on China Unicom and China Telecom. (more…)
China Mobile 4G LTE Expansion on Track
China Mobile maintains guidance of building 200,000 LTE base stations in FY13, 20.8% of which will be based on the 2.3GHz E-band spectrum for indoor coverage. The base stations number split between software upgrade (F-band spectrum) and new towers (mainly on D-band spectrum) will partly depend on the equipment price. LTE equipment tender will be completed by August.
Management expects commercial TD-LTE smartphone will be launched by end of 2013, but mainly high-end models. TD-LTE smartphone priced around Rmb1,000 could be available by end of 2014, based on current feedback from chipset and handset vendors. (more…)
Global Memory Prices to Soften Gradually
PC DRAM spot price has recorded a sharp correction from early July, in line but a bit earlier than our expectation. We expect mobile DRAM to drive further margin improvement on the significant reduction in production cost that offset the gradual price decline.
Less-than-expected demand for high-end smartphones is taking a toll on NAND prices, although server SSD demand remains robust. We are seeing polarization in product prices: NAND for memory card/MCP is undergoing a price correction on high competition while product prices of high-end NAND for SSD, eMMC, etc, (more…)
Reliance Jio Infocomm’s Voice Service – BUY WholeSale Minutes or More Spectrum ?
Reliance Jio Infocomm thinks big like the Ambani DNA. As the Economic Progress in India came to an halt, affordability of 4G got pushed back by few more years. In this backdrop, 2G Voice continues to be the Cash Ringing Register for Telcos.
The State of Voice over LTE
With challenges in commercial VoLTE deployments, circuit switched fallback (CSFB) has been the more popular form of providing voice and data services globally. CSFB allows the subscriber to use data services over 4G networks but switches back to the traditional 2G/3G networks when using voice. Globally, only MetroPCS and Korean operators have launched VoLTE services and the technology is still (more…)