CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-Although the Asian currency crisis likely will result in making both handsets and financing more difficult and costly to obtain, wireless subscriber growth and revenues will continually expand until 2002, according to a new study examining the Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India markets from Pyramid Research called Wireless Markets and Strategies in South Asia.
While the currency crisis is expected to affect subscriber growth in the near-term, the research company predicts the cellular and personal communications services markets will expand at an average rate of 51 percent annually during the period between 1997 and 2002-from more than 985,000 in 1997 to more than 7.8 million in 2002. Increased competition, lower prices and the introduction of PCS technology-which is expected in India by 1999-will contribute to the long-term market growth.
The troubles wireless operators are facing as a result of the currency crisis could mean a slowdown in wireless network rollout and expansion in the region, resulting in dampened growth of the equipment market, according to the Pyramid report.
The equipment market should remain steady, growing at an average rate of 29 percent per year, said Pyramid. Handset costs are likely to suffer most from the economic turmoil since the product primarily is imported.
The paging market in South Asia is expected to experience a steady but unspectacular subscriber growth rate of 36 percent from 1997 to 2002, even in the face of increased competition from cellular and PCS network services.
Another technology with a forecast for long-term growth is wireless local loop-projected to grow from 100,000 subscribers in 1997, to more than 5.9 million subscribers in 2002, Pyramid said.
The predicted growth in cellular, PCS and paging subscribers is expected to increase wireless revenues in South Asia from $345 million in 1997 to more than $3.6 billion by 2002, for an average annual growth rate of 60 percent, the report said.
However, revenue growth also is expected to be negatively affected by declining usage as more marginal subscribers are added onto the systems.
