Regional mobile subscriptions to hit 1.3B by 2022
THE Philippines is one of the fastest-growing countries in terms of mobile subscriptions in Southeast Asia and Oceania but it lags behind its neighbors when it comes to usage of local apps, a report by Swedish ICT company Ericsson showed.
According to the June 2017 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report, mobile subscriptions in the region are forecast to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 3%, reaching around 1.3 billion subscriptions by 2022.
“Myanmar, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines are among the top 10 countries globally for net mobile subscription additions,” the report read.
The report also showed that at the end of 2016, mobile subscriptions in the region, which also covers developed markets such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, reached over 1 billion or close to 15% of the global mobile subscriptions market.
Ericsson cited the expansion of LTE networks throughout the region as the driving force behind the increase of subscriptions “to monumental proportions.”
“Smartphone uptake is also a key driver for data traffic. By the end of 2017, around 50% of all mobile subscriptions will be associated with smartphones, reaching around 70% by the end of 2022 in the region,” the report read.
GSM usage will also continue to decline in the region as LTE sets to overtake WCDMA/ HSPA in terms of the number of mobile subscriptions, and early deployments of 5G are expected to accelerate the growth of mobile subscriptions to such service.
In a statement, head for Ericsson Philippines and Pacific Islands Sean Gowran said the region “will lead the global rollout of 5G along with North America,” to be led by early 5G adopters South Korea ( in 2018), closely followed by Japan and China ( 2020), and Australia and Singapore.
In the Philippines, Ericsson said that while the country has shown “improvement” in mobile broadband app coverage year over year, it lags behind other countries in terms of usage of local apps. According to the report, the country has the least percentage (10%) of local app usage — way below the regional usage average of 18%.
“Our analysis of mobile broadband app coverage across the region shows that the Philippines has improved year on year, with the probability of a user achieving the minimum required network speed for Web browsing improving by 19%,” Mr. Gowran said in a statement.
“Video streaming improved 40% year on year while High Definition Video streaming improved 53%,” he added.
Ericsson also noted that when it comes to industry digitalization, the Philippines needs to take advantage of revenue potential arising from these sectors: energy and utilities, public safety, and manufacturing.
The report also showed that despite the increased global Internet usage, more than 50% of the world’s population is still not connected.
“The most cost-efficient way to bring more people online is to leverage existing mobile network infrastructure. However, the main challenges in connecting the unconnected are primarily related to affordability literacy, and provision of relevant services — rather than the availability of technology,” Ericsson said in the report.