صنعت ارتباطات از راه دور در ایران- سه ماهه چهارم 2011
Executive Summary
Q411 update on Iran’s telecommunications market contains
revised forecasts for the development of mobile telephony, internet usage and
fixed-line connectivity through to 2015. Since our last update, some new data
has become available for the end of 2010. Meanwhile, the country’s
second-largest mobile operator, MTN Irancell, published new operational
data for the period ended March 2011. MTN reported almost 31.4mn mobile
subscribers at the end of March 2011. This figure was up by 5.5% compared with
the previous quarter and by 23.7% against the previous year.
Our new mobile subscriber forecast for Iran expects the mobile sector expanding
by about 21.5% in 2011, with the mobile customer base predicted to grow to more than 82mn by the end of
the year. If achieved, our prediction will mean Iran’s mobile market penetration rate will cross the
100% threshold sometime in 2011. However, it should be remembered that the bulk
of mobile subscriptions in Iran are made up of prepaid users. Many of these are understood to be inactive and this means
actual penetration rates are almost certainly much lower than our forecast
suggests.
In addition to our regular mobile subscriber forecast, we are introducing a new
forecast for mobile ARPU levels in Iran. Our forecast is calculated in Iran’s
local currency, the Rial and is based on ARPU figures published by MTN
Irancell, the only operator which publishes ARPU rates on any regular basis.
Expressed in the local currency, MTN had an average blended ARPU of IRR83,311
(US$8) for 2010. This was up by 8.7% compared to the previous year. The growth
of MTN’s ARPU, in local currency terms, occurred in spite of the promotions
which the operator introduced in a bid to capture market share from mobile
market leader MCI. This suggests ARPU growth was driven by other
factors, including an increase in the general level of service usage and a
trend towards the use of more lucrative data services.
During the next five years, we forecast ARPU levels in Iran’s mobile sector
will come under increasing downward pressure as competition intensifies. In
addition to new competition from Iran’s third-largest mobile operator Taliya,
which is continuing to deploy a national network infrastructure, we are
optimistic that a new national mobile operator will enter the market. One
possibility is that a new entrant will enter the market through the acquisition
of regional operator MTCE. MTCE is 49%-owned by Malaysian operator Axiata,
the latter of which announced in July 2010 it was possibly looking to sell its
stake in MTCE. The company is licensed to operate a GSM 900MHz mobile service
with a capacity of 35,000 customers in Esfahan. Its 15-year licence expires in
May 2016.
A revised forecast for Iran’s fixed-line telephony sector depicts average
annual growth of 2.3% in the five years to 2015. Although the annual growth
rates are expected to fall in the latter years of our forecast, we expect there
will be more than 30mn fixed lines in service by the end of 2015, resulting in
a penetration rate of about 38%.
Although there are further changes to our forecast for Iran’s internet user
market this quarter, our forecast for the number of broadband subscribers remains unchanged. We estimate Iran had
more than 25.4mn internet users at the end of 2010; resulting in penetration of
34.4%. Despite strong internet usage growth in recent years, there are signs a
major slowdown in growth is under way. This could suggest that the limit of the
country’s addressable market of potential internet users is already being
reached.
Iran continues to sit at the bottom of BMI’s Business Environment Ratings
for Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Iran’s individual category and
composite scores remain unchanged this quarter. Although Iran has a low score
in all of the categories surveyed by BMI, in none of the categories does
it have the lowest score in the MENA region.
گزارش تحلیلی بیزینس مانیتور- صنعت ارتباطات از راه دور در ایران- سه ماهه چهارم 2011
