Sigve Brekke, DiGi.Com Berhad’s Chairman, Telenor Group Executive Vice President and Head of Asia Operations
KL Converge took place on Wednesday September 17th at KL Convention Center. Sigve Brekke, DiGi.Com Berhad’s Chairman, Telenor Group Executive Vice President and Head of Asia Operations was one of the first people to take the stage for a keynote address in the morning.
Telenor Group has the aim to connect 45 million internet users in Asia by the end of this year, an increase of around 64% year over year; what it claims to be the fastest mobile internet uptake to date.
Once this target is achieved, approximately one-third of Telenor Group’s user base of 160 million person in Asia (including DiGi subscribers) will be connected to the internet.
There are currently lesser than 20% of active mobile internet users in Telenor’s markets in Asia. Telenor’s initiative will be a “marked jump” and an encouraging progress towards a widespread internet penetration. Its ‘Internet for All’ strategy is looking to capture significant revenue and growth potential in regions with low fixed-line access and declining prices of internet connected devices.
“This brings us one step closer to realizing our Internet for All mission in Asia. Our projections may be ambitious, but we are well positioned to continue rolling out mobile internet services to all in our Asian markets over the long-term,” said Sigve Brekke.
He continued, “From a commercial perspective, mobile internet and mobile data are valuable for all economic players. They more than sustain business and allow us to continue innovating, serving, and connecting. Internet penetration contributes to GDP, as reports from McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group have indicated, and it helps new technology ecosystems flourish in developing markets.”
“From a human perspective, the mobile internet is life-changing. And in this region of the world, we have the opportunity to bring our services to a much larger pool of people. The significant mobile internet growth that we project this year in all of our Asian markets shows that we’re well on our way toward Internet for All,” concluded Brekke.
Telenor’s Asian markets in the past two years have also seen quite a growth in terms of mobile data penetration. In Malaysia, the it has grown steadily to achieve a 75% broadband penetration by 2015. This is helped greatly by infrastructure deployment by key carriers, and the 3G coverage is at 80% of the population today. Malaysia has seen 4G LTE being launched since January 2013, after the 2600MHz spectrum was allocated for it by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) just a few months before, in 2012.
In other regions like Thailand, mobile internet reach has almost doubled from 18% to 32%, and DTAC (Telenor-owned carrier) has recently launched its 4G services in Bangkok on top of its existing 3G network nationwide. Telenor has also secured 3G spectrum in Thailand, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, added the 1800MHz spectrum in India, plus additional 900MHz and 2100MHz in Myanmar. Over at Bangladesh in early 2014, Grameenphone has completed its fastest ever nationwide 3G rollout in Telenor Group’s history. Later in April, Telenor Pakistan got its license to start 3G services and at the same time increase the number of mobile data users in the country. Also in India, Uninor (also Telenor-owned) just introduced internet services on both its feature phones and smartphones, while expecting to double the data users and data revenues this year. And finally, Telenor will begin the rollout of 2G and 3G services in Myanmar next month.
To encourage and stimulate internet usages that will meet customers’ needs, Telenor also partners with key players like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Wikipedia, and focuses on digital offerings like financial services, knowledge access, plus affordable and accessible health services.
Henrik Clausen, Executive Vice President and Head of Group Strategy and Digital of Telenor, said, “By using these services, the lives of individuals will transform and in turn stimulate societies to grow. Given the strong growth trajectory and pace of innovation, we are confident that we can monetize on this huge demand for mobile data in the coming years.”
As it stands, Telenor Group had a total of 158 million voice, text, and data subscribers as of the end of Q2 2014.
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