What is the current state of the telecom industry in Myanmar for wholesale carriers? Where do you see thegrowth opportunities?
Myanmar telecom market is still limited. The wholesale sector, in the past, was monopolised by MPT and only a, limited number of companies could supply wholesale minutes. Now due to the liberalised policies, there are new telecom operators.
Last year, we had around 30 million minutes a month. This year, it has grown up to around 50 million minutes a month. Now we have up to 30 million mobile subscribers. We have 5 million Myanmar people overseas, and they need to call back home. So there’s potential growth for the voice market in the next 1-2 years.
Another thing is that it is still a challenge for the inter-connectivity between international wholesale carriers and operators in Myanmar, because Telenor and Ooredoo are not ready yet for their own international gateway. Probably they will be ready by end of this year.
The reason for the delay is because they are mainly focused on BTS (Base Transmission Station) and building up their mobile cell towers. Also, now they are leasing from MPT, the national gateway provider. I think Telenor has already built their networks through dtac from cross border and Ooredoo is building own network from SEAME-WE 3. Currently they all lease from MPT.
What’s your view on the voice business?
There’s still a market for voice in CLMV countries (i.e. Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam). Also, according to the vision of ASEAN Economic Community 2015, we will have free trade and labour. A lot of migrant workers are working across countries, so there’s potenti al for the voice business to growth – unlike in Europe and other countries where voice is dying. Yet for Southeast Asia, it’s still a good market – for at least 2 years.
To what extent do you think the migration to OTT is affecting wholesale carriers?
In Myanmar, OTT is still a limited market, because data usage is still low, compared to voice (60%) and data (40%). OTT is popular amongst the young generation, aged between teenage years to 40 years. Two strong OTT players in Myanmar are Viber and Facebook Messenger. Another player to take note of is Skype. Only Telenor and Ooredoo have connection with OTTs, but not yet to MPT KDDI. In Southeast Asia, OTT represents a huge market opportunity for carriers and carriers should look into how to partner with these OTT players.
