The company said subscriber growth in the region had been driven by dramatically falling mobile call costs, reduced handset prices, and the expansion of network infrastructure in key emerging markets like India and Indonesia.
The region remains one of the few truly fast growing regions in the world, with booming economies, large populations and still small mobile penetration rates.
The report highlighted the remaining potential for growth.
For example, with 142 million subscribers, India overtook Japan as the region’s second biggest mobile market after China. Yet mobile market penetration in India is just 13 per cent, meaning the market is still largely untapped.
The Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Mobile Communications Outlook 2007 study looked at 13 major regional economies. The report found Subscriber numbers across the region had growth at a compound annual rate of 24 per cent between 2002 and 2006.
“The impact of the emerging markets on the rest of the region is likely to grow in significance as regional carriers search for sustainable growth, and as economies of scale further drives down 3G handset prices,” said Frost & Sullivan industry manager Janice Chong.“
“Of the expected 190 million net subscriber additions in 2007, 90.8 per cent are likely to stem from the emerging markets” Ms Chong said.
Mobile broadband is likely to be the next killer application in the region’s promising mobile landscape. The business case for 3G may not lie in 3G itself, but in 3.5G – commonly known as high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA).
“HSDPA and WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) are expected to play a prominent role in 2007, given the number of trials that have taken place in 2006,” Ms Chong said.
While the launch of HSDPA has taken precedence in certain countries, WiMAX may still be the focus in emerging markets like India and Indonesia.
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