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Home > Communications > Wireless > Networking
2007 Central Asian - Mobile Communications and Mobile Data
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This market report covers eight countries in the Central Asia sub-region. It takes an overall look at the various telecoms markets, together with a particular look at the mobile market segments in each of the following countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
The countries of Central Asia have typically been struggling with poor telecom infrastructure and correspondingly low telecom penetrations - both fixed and mobile - for many years now. With fixed penetrations all below 20% (and some considerably less than that), there has been an obvious opportunity for mobile services to fill the gap. It is over the last few years that this has finally started to happen and it is now taking place right across the sub-region. Mobile markets are, in fact, booming; Kazakhstan, the most highly penetrated (49%), has been through a growth surge and was continuing to grow at more than 30% per annum coming into 2007. While at the other end of the scale was the lowly penetrated Tajikistan (4%), whose subscriber numbers grew by almost 150% in 2006.
There is no doubt that the momentum built up in the various markets will see this growth continue for some time. Nevertheless, there are important issues needing to be addressed in the regulatory structure of the markets to ensure a strong and competitive business environment is in place. All the mobile markets have now been opened up to a level of competition, the last to do so being Armenia with the arrival of a second mobile operator in late 2005. The minnow of the markets, Tajikistan, now has six mobile operators! The benefits flowing from the adoption of more open markets have not been consistent across the sub-region, however. In some cases, this has been due to the presence of an overly strong incumbent combined with a weak regulatory regime. And in the case of Kyrgyzstan, general business governance standards were being called into question by the ‘transitioning’ of mobile operator Bitel into Sky Mobile in 2006 (legal challenges were pending).
Somewhat surprisingly, 3G networks are already starting to appear in Central Asia. Tajikistan was the first of to actually launch a 3G network, with four operators licensed to offer 3G services. Georgia awarded a 3G licence in April 2006, but the network had not been launched by early 2007.
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