John Linton I read the Vodafone/Hutchison annual results report earlier this morning and while the Telstra reported growth in HSPA revenue was spectacular (at 70%) the HTA results of a 45% revenue growth are also very impressive given the limtations of their sales areas but it was their increase of 167% in number of HSPA users that was the figure that caught my eye:
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20090811/pdf/31k17sj8tbrhw1.pdf
As I commented on the Telstra figures that growth is steepening an already steep trend and the take up is a pretty clear indication that another marketplace is emerging for data over mobile devices that looks like becoming the dominant driver of data and mobile usage in the very near future if it isn't already but not only that bt it will become the major use of a mobile device - over taking revenue from voice calls over mobiles.
Growth percentages of above 50% or more in the mobile data market in a single year compared with single digit growth in ADSL and barely double digit growth in mobile (and I'm not sure whether that includes data or not as the figures aren't clear) is a pretty clear indication of a true 'sea change' in the Australian communications marketplaces.....and this is before there is a 'universal' take up of data capable mobile handsets in use - imagine what the numbers will look like once every mobile telephone user can access the internet?
In the meantime the various wire line internet providers continue to gloss over their ADSL 'growth' by burying it somewhere in their results with the sort of comments that Telstra's CEO used that 'growth was slowing' after his predecessor previously saying that growth was 'very strong' and quoting his amazing number of 30%. The last ABS number (Feb 2009 for 31/12/080 was around 6.7 million connections which is almost certainly a little rubbery but with 9,000,000 'households' in Australia is right up there at a saturation sort of level. The new ABS results will become available next month and it will be interesting to see if they make double digits....my bet would be thy won't even allowing for the 'creative reporting' of the companies that input the base data to the survey.
So, from what figures are available at this point in time HSPA, barely out of its 'infancy' in Australia is growing at a rate that will see it over take ADSL in terms of number of users within 18 - 24 months and will surpass ADSL in terms of revenue within 12 months of that happening - at a rough and ready estimate. Interesting enough conjecture and heavily reliant on spectrum availability and capex decisions by the mobile carriers. Also, dependent on the increasingly fast upgrading of the current mobile users from non data capable phones to data capable hand sets which will be a given over some sort of time frame.
So pretty soon the 'excitement' of the reporting season will be a dim memory and the oohing and ahhing over the ABS figures will be a thing of the past and the reality of one more technology change will have to be dealt with by the various participants in the Australian industry. The 'NBN2' will continue to be re-defined (and continue to be pushed back in terms of implementation) and it's impact on the actuality of data delivery in Australia will continue to become more 'real' or, as I would think, more irrelevant as more people begin to see it for what it always was - total nonsense winged on the gullible voters by the most unscrupulous set of unmitigated liars yet seen in Australian politics (and that's a fearsome record to attempt to beat).
With a mere six weeks of the new financial year completed the current set of announcements and the more realistic of the predictions only seem to confirm our views that ADSL will become less important to Exetel in terms of both revenue and investment and HSPA and VoIP will become more important in both those key aspects of our overall business and, more importantly in terms of the people currently within the company and the new hiring we may do over the balance of the current financial year. I'm not saying our take up of ADSL will lessen - every indication over these first few weeks is that ADSL will continue to grow, for us, at a faster rate than it did in FY2009. However our business products are more quickly growing and are set to grow even faster as a percentage of our total monthly recurrent revenue and both our VoIP and HSPA services are also tracking much steeper growth curve - at least at the moment.
So my conclusion, based on the early results from the carriers, is that they will continue to lose market share to the next level down and that HSPA and VoIP will continue to make rapid gains at the expense of ADSL and conventional telephony - mind you I would have said that at any month in the past two years.