June 4, 2008
Asia-Pacific WiMax Market Poised to Take Off
With its Asia Pacific WiMax Opportunity report, research firm Frost & Sullivan finds that the region – covering 17 Asia-Pacific countries – can have 43 million WiMax subscribers by end-2013. This will generate estimated revenues of $11 billion, at a CAGR of 45% (2007-2013).

The emerging markets are expected to account for nearly 80% (or 34.4 million) of the total subscribers in 2013, collectively contributing 69% (or $7.59 billion) to the region’s total WiMax revenues.

At end-2007, Asia’s household broadband penetration stood at 3.4%. This translates to nearly 3.7 billion people who have yet to adopt broadband access. This means huge potential exists for WiMax in terms of subscriber uptake and network deployments.

The researcher observes that WiMax adoption has been slow, as it faces challenges including regulatory issues, weak operator support, and high CPE (customer premise equipment) prices.

Of the 17 Asian countries in the study that were ranked for regulatory support and operators’ willingness to deploy the technology, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India topped the list. As large operators such as Japan’s KDDI and India’s BSNL continue to pursue deployments, Frost & Sullivan believes that WiMax will gain momentum in 2009.

WiMax is being promoted as an alternative technology to connect underserved rural areas that can’t hope to have fixed-line services. The technology promises voice and data connectivity at speeds of up to 1Mbps.