Asia's biggest growth yet to come. (Database/Network News & Products).

Strong economic growth, coupled with greater consumer spending power saw a positive growth in telecommunication services in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a new report by International Telecommunication Union. The effects of the 2001 global economic stowdown have been milder in this part of the world and a ranking of the ten most profitable public telecommunication operators shows that seven originate in Asia.

ITU Asia-Pacific Telecommunication Indicators, released by ITU to coincide with ITU TELEcom Asia 2002, reports that as a global player the Asia-Pacific region distinguishes itself not only in size of its telecommunication market and growth in teledensity but also in technology deployment, and the innovative and flexible nature of its policy models. In 2001, the region emerged as the world's largest telecommunication market, having added more than one new telephone user every second for the last decade. The report observes that South Asia, currently the least developed sub-region with a teledensity of 4 in 2001, could provide the next great spurt of growth for the region as this is where the potential for "catch-up" is greatest.

White Japan and the Republic of Korea continue to lead the world in commercial deployment of 3G networks, small countries Like Bhutan and Tonga have also leapfrogged to leading edge technologies such as wireless LANs and all IP networks.

Singapore and Hong Kong, China withdrew exclusivity of their operators' Licenses in order to introduce competition in international services. Likewise, Thailand and Vietnam found ways to introduce alternative suppliers and foreign investment into their markets.

Mobile and Internet Economy

In the mobile economy, the Asia-Pacific region is poised to overtake Europe as the world's largest market during 2002, although mobile penetration is still below 10%. Two of the top three mobile economies worldwide, as measured by mobile phones per capita, are from the region. They are Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, China. The region also hosts the economies with the largest number of mobile Internet users: Japan and Korea. Mobile technologies also contributed to raising total teledensity dramatically in many developing countries that might otherwise have expected to remain locked Into low Levels of access. Thanks to mobile substitution, while half the region's developing countries had a teledensity of less than one in 1993, this had been reduced to only two (Afghanistan and Myanmar) by mid-2002.

The notion that restrictions on content would hinder Internet usage has been disproved in Asia, as the region, with 160 million users, now accounts for one-third of the total Internet users in the world, more than any other region.

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