Market Trends

 Amman, Jordan, July 15, 2010—As of the  end of June 2010, 26 out of 55 operators licensed to offer WiMAX offered the service. WiMAX is commercially available in Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE. Moreover, Yemen and Oman are slated to WiMAX services in the second half of 2010. 

San Jose, CA, July 15,2010—The Multimedia Research Group, Inc. (MRG) announced that its updated report on global annual growth shows IPTV subscribers will reach 102 million in 2014, a 25% CAGR. Despite economic hardship in some countries, robust Broadband and IPTV investments have been driving growth as a means to meet and outperform Cable and Satellite competition. IPTV Operators are using Fiber in high-competition markets and advanced DSL such as channel bonding and VDSL2 in other (less competitive) markets. As a result, Telcos have been discreetly improving their IPTV bandwidth capacity to sub-markets that need upgrades without overspending in markets that don’t require immediate upgrading.

by Virgil Labrador, Editor-in-Chief

Singapore, June 18, 2010--This year's CommunicAsia in Singapore held earlier this month had a different feel to it. I've been attending CommunicAsia for nearly 15 years now and there was an air of optimism that was borne by real prospects in this growing market.

Singapore, June 16, 2010--Broadband subscription growth took an upswing during the first quarter of 2010, supported in part by healthy DSL growth in every region, strong fiber rollouts in Asia and aggressive IPTV service offerings. These statistics were revealed today by the Broadband Forum at a CommunicAsia press conference, in conjunction with research by industry analysts Point Topic. 

Singapore, June 7, 2010--More than 719 million pay-TV subscribers are expected to sign up in 2010 as the economic recovery continues to gain momentum, according to latest forecasts from ABI Research. Digital Home industry analyst Michael Inouye notes, "ABI Research estimates that worldwide pay-TV subscriber numbers will surpass 719 million by the end of 2010 as novel solutions such as Google TV move from trial to commercial launch."

Editor, Asia-Pacific

Manila, June 1, 2010-With almost 3.8 billion people, the Asia-Pacific accounts for over 60 percent of the world population. China and India alone has about 40 percent of the world’s total. Given the rising incomes and improving economic conditions, Asia continues to draw satellite service vendors and equipment manufacturers who are always on the lookout for new opportunities.

by Tom van der Heyden

Bangkok, June 1, 2010-Connecting the growing mobile and wireless infrastructure in Asia to the World Wide Web is by far the best potential long term market for satellite capacity in this part of the world after television broadcast driven requirements. Our data collection, research and resulting analysis shows that over the next 2 – 5 years internet driven markets will represent 25 – 35% of the South East Asian satellite broadband customer base and by the year 2020 this market will have grown to represent 80% - 90% of the customer base.  

Las Vegas, NV, April 14, 2010 – Ernst & Young  released a report on the media and entertainment landscape in the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). The report provides an overview of the latest indicators of market attractiveness, as well as the opportunities, challenges and critical success factors in conducting business in these four countries.