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Myanmar (Burma) ­ Telecoms, Mobile and Internet

Executive summary

Competition arrives in Myanmar’s restructured telecom sector: what next?

Throughout 2012 and into 2013 major changes have been taking place in Myanmar’stelecom sector. The government’s plans to liberalise the market have certainly movedquickly. The initial round of reforms has seen action on the issuing of a series of new telecomoperating licences, allowing international companies to form joint ventures with thegovernment to build infrastructure and to offer services. The changes coincided with widerreforms being pursued by a government that had come to power in Myanmar in 2011 aftermany years of rule by the military. Among other things, the new government has announcedsome ambitious growth targets. Whilst it is generally agreed that the reform project had madea good start, by mid­2013 there remained much work to be done to bring the country’stelecom sector up to speed.

Over the last year or so, the international telecom community has shown unprecedentedinterest in this emerging market. The issuing of new mobile licences in mid­2013 took placeas scheduled and saw two foreign players chosen to enter the market and help the countryachieve its growth targets. These two companies have moved quickly into a post­tenderphase where they began negotiating details of their respective concessions with thegovernment and started planning their respective rollouts. In the meantime, as part ofMyanmar’s market reform, the state­owned incumbent telecom operator Myanmar Posts andTelecommunications (MPT) is slated for ‘dismantling’; this will probably see it as an operatorworking without government funding, most probably in joint venture with an experiencedtelecom partner.

In the meantime the country has many problems to address. It is still struggling with thelegacy of those years spent under the military junta. The telecommunications sector has longbeen dominated by the state­owned monopoly telephone service provider. With the militarygovernment’s conservative approach to structural reform, it was not surprising that MPTcontinued to maintain its monopoly over the telecom sector, long being the sole nationaltelephone network operator. In another legacy consideration, the dispersion of networkinfrastructure has been heavily biased towards the cities, with Yangon and Mandalay havingrelatively large telephone penetrations compared to the rural areas. By 2012 most villages inMyanmar were still without a fixed­line telephone service.

For a long time, foreign investment in the telecom sector continued to be low, due to thepolitical situation in Myanmar, the structure of the country’s telecom industry and the generalstate of the economy, this also being despite the government’s attempts to increase foreigninterest. Of course, with the 2012 reforms this certainly looks as if it will change dramatically;apart from the commitment made by the two new mobile operators, other foreign operatorshave also committed to or expressed interest in investing in the reformed market.

Whilst the round of major reforms announced in 2012 offer great hope for Myanmar’stelecom sector, as already noted there remains much to be done and many problems toresolve in order to develop and improve the overall market.

Market highlights:

Myanmar’s mobile market has rapidly expand over the last five years, at leastin relative terms;There was a particularly strong surge in 2012;Of course, this mobile subscriber growth has been from a low base andalthough figures are contradictory, mobile penetration was still low into 2013;Fixed­line subscriber numbers have been growing erratically (published figureshave been revised downwards); overall penetration remains low;Internet penetration also remained low, although the numbers had started torapidly increase in 2013/2013;Fixed broadband services were small in number, one positive being theprogressive introduction of a variety of platforms, including mobile broadbandand WiMAX services;The number of mobile broadband subscribers jumped dramatically in 2013;On the regulatory front 2012 saw a major move to liberalise the market and thisprocess has continued through 2013 and into 2014;The initial round of proposed reforms saw two new operating licences issued inJune 2013, for the first time allowing international companies to enter themarket and to offer telecom services;The earlier call for expressions of interest had seen an overwhelming responsefrom foreign telecom operators interested in entering the Myanmar market;Qatar’s Ooredoo and Norway’s Telenor were the winners of the biddingprocess;Ooredoo was the first to launch, offering a mobile service to a large part ofMyanmar in August 2014;There were still signs of ‘old behaviour’ in the market place reminiscent of thedays under full military rule; this is certain to challenge the new regulatoryenvironment.

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Number of pages: 40

Status: Current

Last update: 01 September 2014View update history

Analyst: Peter Evans

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Note: Reporting on the Myanmar telecom market continues to rely to a large extent onestimated figures as official information is either not available or has been found to becontradictory.

Myanmar (Burma) ­ key telecom parameters – 2012 ­ 2014

Category 2012 2013 2014 (e)

Fixed­line services:

Subscriber penetration (population) 1.0% 1.0% 1.0%

Internet services:

Fixed subscriber penetration (population) 0.1% 0.2% 0.3%

Mobile services:

Subscriber penetration (population) 7% 13% 17%

(Source: BuddeComm)

This report provides an overview of the trends and developments in the telecommunicationsmarkets in Myanmar (Burma). Subjects covered include:

Key statistics;Market and industry overviews;Major operators (mobile and fixed)Regulatory environment;Infrastructure;Mobile market;Internet market (including broadband).

Table of Contents

1. Executive summary2. Key statistics

2.1 Country overview2.1.1 Background2.1.2 Economy

2.2 Political and social changes in Myanmar2.2.1 Protests in 20072.2.2 Referendum2.2.3 Prelude to 2010 elections2.2.4 The 2010 elections and aftermath2.2.5 New government and legislature – 2011 onwards2.2.6 IMF reports ­2012 / 20132.2.7 Censorship

3. Telecommunications market3.1 Overview of Myanmar’s telecom market3.2 New telecom licences ­ 2013

3.2.1 Background3.2.2 Decision on the two new operators

3.3 Analysis: challenges facing the licence winners

4. Regulatory environment4.1 Background4.2 Market liberalisation process4.3 Foreign investment4.4 Industry activity following liberalisation4.5 Other new licences4.6 Corruption investigations4.7 4G / Long Term Evolution (LTE)

5. Telecommunications infrastructure5.1 National infrastructure

5.1.1 Background5.1.2 Fixed­line statistics5.1.3 Wireless Local Loop (WLL)5.1.4 National backbone network

5.2 International infrastructure5.2.1 Overview5.2.2 Satellite networks

6. Internet market6.1 Overview6.2 Background6.3 Government control of the internet

6.3.1 Cyber attack

23/12/2014 Myanmar (Burma) ­ Telecoms, Mobile and Internet ­ BuddeComm ­ BuddeComm

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6.4 Internet Service Providers (ISPs)6.4.1 Bagan Cybertech6.4.2 Yatanarpon Teleport (YTP)6.4.3 Internet statistics

6.5 Internet cafes ­ background6.6 WiMAX

7. Mobile communications7.1 Overview of Myanmar’s mobile market7.2 Mobile statistics7.3 Tariffs7.4 Third Generation (3G) development7.5 Mobile operators7.6 Myanmar P&T (MPT)

7.6.1 Overview7.6.2 Changing market7.6.3 SIM card pricing

7.7 Ooredoo7.7.1 Overview7.7.2 Service launch

7.8 Telenor7.8.1 Overview

7.9 Mobile services7.9.1 Satellite mobile7.9.2 Mobile Broadcasting

8. Broadcasting market8.1 Overview

9. Related reports

Table 1 – Country statistics Myanmar – 2014Table 2 – Telecom revenue and investment statistics – 2011Table 3 – Telephone network statistics – 2013Table 4 – Internet user statistics – 2013Table 5 – Mobile statistics – 2013Table 6 – National telecommunications authoritiesTable 7 – Myanmar’s GDP real growth rate – 2006 ­ 2015Table 8 – Fixed­line subscribers, penetration and annual change – 1988, 1990,1995 ­ 2014Table 9 – Internet users and penetration – 1999 ­ 2014Table 10 – Fixed internet subscribers – 1999 – 2013Table 11 – Fixed broadband subscribers – 2005 ­ 2014Table 12 – Mobile broadband subscribers – 2011 ­ 2014Table 13 – Internet access by household – 2005 ­ 2012Table 14 – International internet bandwidth – 2000 ­ 2013Table 15 – Mobile subscribers, penetration and annual change – 1995 ­ 2014Table 16 – MPT Mobile subscribers and annual change by service type – March2009Table 15 – MPT subscribers, annual change and market share – 2008 ­ 2013Table 17 – Key broadcasting statistics – 2013

Chart 1 ­ Fixed­line subscribers and annual change ­ 2000 – 2014Chart 2 ­ Internet users and penetration 2005 ­ 2014Chart 3 ­ Mobile subscribers and annual change ­ 2005 ­ 2014

Exhibit 1 – Overview of MPT’s CDMA service

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