Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/06/2012 -- BMI View: The Australian telecommunications industry is one of the highest value markets in Asia Pacific and even the world, underpinned by high incomes and strong uptake of higher value services such as broadband and smartphone handsets. However, with mobile penetration above 130% in Q212, subscription growth opportunities are severely limited in the years ahead - instead operators are increasingly focused on value generation strategies. The market is therefore currently seeing high levels of investment in next generation broadband technologies.

Key Data:

- The Australian mobile market continued to see strong growth in H112 with y-o-y growth of 5.7% as total subscriptions reached 30.146mn.
- Mobile ARPUs declined faster than expected y-o-y to Q212, with market share weighted monthly blended ARPU declining by 6.8% to the end of June 2012.

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Key Trends And Developments

With mobile subscription growth slowing and downward pressure on prices, investment in wireless data has been critical to operator strategy in recent quarters. Following Telstra's LTE launch in September 2011, Optus has joined the fray, in September 2012 announcing it was launching its fully commercialised 4G LTE network, initially in Perth and Newcastle, before being rolled out in Melbourne on September 15 2012. However, the first LTE-enabled handset, Samsung's Galaxy S III 4G, will not become available until September 20 2012. USB dongles will, however, be available at launch, with prices from AUD34.95 for 1GB a month of downloads, plus AUD5.50 for the dongle. The launch will enable Optus to close the gap to market leader Telstra.

Meanwhile, Telstra, which already has an operational 4G LTE network (and 3.5G services), announced in late August 2012 that it would wind down its first 3G network built in the 2.1GHz band from September 2012. Telstra will, however, continue to offer 3.5G services, as well as 2G services for basic talk and text. Higher capacity services will be served in the 850MHz band.

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