IDC CEMA Telecommunications Newsletter

MEA Mobile Services and Handsets Telebriefing

Date:	March 03, 2009
Time:	11am – 12pm (London) / 3pm – 4pm (Dubai)

The Middle East and Africa represent some of the most promising – but challenging – mobile services markets in the world. Join our telebriefing to learn about the pace of mobile services expansion across MEA, trends in service introduction and adoption, and promising markets.

Feature Story

Vodafone/Vodacom - the Regional Giant Renewed

The recent announcement by Vodafone that it would seek to gain a controlling stake in the successful South African based mobile network operator, Vodacom, was not received with too much surprise from businesses and industry observers as Vodafone had long held that it would like to increase its stake in the operator. In this months's feature story, we look at the opportunities and challenges for Vodafone/Vodacom on the African market.

IDC Press Center

IDC's Telco Predictions for 2009: Growth Continues Despite Economic Crisis

In its top ten predictions for the Australian telecommunications market in 2009, IDC expects sustained growth in telecommunications services of 3-4% in 2009, despite the economic downturn.

According to a recent study from IDC, mobile broadband has grown rapidly in popularity among European consumers during the past 18 months. This rapid consumer uptake has been catalyzed by four main factors: the upgrading of 3G networks with HSPA, the availability of small USB connection devices, a fall in the price of subscriptions, and a rise in consumer penetration of portable PCs.

The mobile enterprise solutions market in the Nordics is expected to continue the strong development witnessed in recent years, according to IDC. ''The current credit crisis will, however, have a minor impact on the market, particularly on the hardware side, with a prolonged sales cycle for portable PCs, for example,'' said Brian Troelsen, research manager at IDC Nordic.

The worldwide mobile phone market experienced an unusual downturn in the normally robust fourth quarter of 2008 (4Q08). According to IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 289.0 million units, 12.6% lower than the 330.8 million units shipped during 4Q07. For the full year 2008, vendors shipped a total of 1.18 billion units worldwide, 3.5% greater than the 1.14 billion units shipped during 2007.

In 2009, Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) telecommunication and networking industry is facing what is possibly the biggest economic slowdown in almost a decade. However, IDC believes industry players across the region will weather the downturn as carriers and larger corporations focus on investing in strategic projects and technologies, enabling the creation and launch of new innovative services and products. This will enable them to stay ahead of the competition, increase their competitive wallet share, and ensure business agility, hence optimizing the existing investments and reducing overall IT expenditure.

IDC tested all four Australian mobile broadband networks over a five-month period, conducting 1,580 observations to assess download and upload speeds in addition to latency. ''Mobile broadband has come a long way in a short period of time, with fixed-line equivalent performance now achievable over a HSPA network. However, users expecting consistency across networks could be disappointed, as performance varied greatly depending on coverage, test location and other conditions,'' said Mark Novosel, Market Analyst, Telecommunications, IDC Australia.

IDC CEMA Communications Studies

Central and Eastern Europe ISP Consolidation Trends

This IDC Insight focuses on emerging opportunities for market consolidation among small ISPs in select countries in CEE. It identifies key broadband market indicators that point to the readiness of certain CEE markets for consolidation and provides an overview of recent acquisitions. Historical data from 2006 to the end of 2007 is included, along with commentary and analysis on market trends up to Q4 2008.

This document highlights CEE market trends that influence the managed services offerings of telecommunications service providers. It extracts several key data points from IDC's 2008 multi-client survey on managed services and examines the cases in which a telco may need to partner with an IT services provider or equipment vendor in order to succeed in this market.

The Polish telecommunications regulator (UKE) plans to divide incumbent operator Telekomunikacja Polska (TP) into retail and wholesale units as part of its efforts to open the market to competition. The division will give all telcos active on the Polish market access to TP's network. The decision was based on a report carried out for UKE by a consortium of KPMG; the Grynhoff, Wozny, Malinski law firm; and the Polish Communications Institute.

Upcoming IDC Communications Events

Central and Eastern European Broadband IP Services Conference 2009

Local conference, February 26, 2009, Sofia, Bulgaria,

Telebriefing, March 3, 2009

Local conference, March 11, 2009, Zurich, Switzerland

Local conference, Mar 11-12, 2009, Lisbon, Portugal

IDC at CTIA Wireless 2009

IDC Briefing, April 2, 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Local conference, April 23, 2009, Madrid, Spain

Local conference, April 23, 2009, Stockholm, Sweden

Local conference, April 28, 2009, Oslo, Norway