Releasing the data yesterday as part of its Market Tracker report, telecommunications research company Market Clarity nevertheless warned that intense competition between broadband providers will squeeze margins.
According to Market Clarity, Australia’s broadband subscriber numbers will swell from today’s 3.52 million to 6.8 million by June 2011, but revenue will only rise to $3.24 million over the same timeframe, straining margins and reducing ARPU. Market Clarity CEO Shara Evans sees signs that providers are gearing for the coming assault, and are investing heavily in infrastructure.
“In the DSL market, 19 different organisations have at least one DSLAM of their own,” Evans says, “Most of them have significantly more (than one.)”
She also notes an “upswing” in infrastructure-based wireless providers, with
67 offering wireless broadband. According to Evans, 56 of these have offerings in regional Australia. With Telstra included, she says there are now 1850 DSLAMs in exchanges outside Australia’s CBDs.
The number of 3G-enabled handsets in the market, meanwhile, is tipped to rise from July’s 1.7 million, to 2.7 million by December, 2006. “Time will tell if this forecast comes to fruition,” said Shara Evans yesterday, but she noted Telstra’s spirited migration of customers from its CDMA network to 3G services as a factor that is likely to support the figure.
Evans predicts that ADSL will retain its mantle of dominant broadband technology, and will account for almost five million of the 6.8 million services predicted for 2011.
