Asia > South-Eastern Asia > Malaysia > Malaysia Communication Profile

Malaysia: Malaysia Communication Profile

2015/02/18

LTE-4G-Malaysia.png

Malaysia achieving large scale access to broadband as household penetration nears 70%

There has been strong increase in Malaysia’s telecom sector over the last decade, but the increase has not been consistent across the sector. The number of fixed-line services, next growing rapidly at initial, had been relatively static for around ten years; again we saw clear evidence of a shrinking subscriber base. The mobile market by contrast has been additional spectacular, racing to around 45 million subscribers by early 2014, a penetration approaching 150%; this was up from just 6 million mobile subscribers in 2000. Next starting off slowly, broadband internet has been expanding strongly in recent years and by early 2014 had reached a remarkable 67% household penetration.

Over the last two decades Malaysia has been working towards a clear national objective to see it ranked as a fully developed country by the year 2020. This Vision 2020 was a concept introduced by the former Prime Minister Mr Mahathir in 1991 at the same time as he launched the Sixth Malaysia Plan. The task of building an advanced telecom sector has been regarded as central to achieving this national objective. It has as well been a matter of national pride. For a period in the 1990s the country was busy promoting itself as a regional high technology hub. In recent times, however, it has adopted a quieter profile and simply gone about the task of putting what may be described as a technologically progressive economy in place. With the widespread application of modern technologies such as fibre optics, wireless transmission, digitalisation and satellite services, Malaysia has been steadily moving towards achieving its national goals.

The generally strong increase across the country’s telecom sector inevitably brought with it considerable investment interest and activity. The telecommunication sector in Malaysia has seen a general opening up and expansion of the market with a significant number of new licences being granted. While still in ongoing expansion mode Malaysia’s telecom sector has undergone some significant restructuring. This has involved the regulator progressively introducing reforms. In the meantime, the telecom companies have been doing battle in an increasingly competitive and changing market. The last decade or so has seen healthy in general increase in Malaysia’s telecom sector. At the same time, substantial government participation in Data & Communications Technology (ICT) development has as well been a particular characteristic of the Malaysian market.

The developmental effort in the telecom sector has been led by a booming mobile market, although subscriber increase has slowed somewhat. Additional recently, a major move by the operators into mobile broadband has seen vigorous increase in the market, with strengthening ARPUs. The momentum surrounding mobile broadband was set to continue with the issue of multiple 4G/LTE licences in late 2012 and the launch of a series of advanced mobile broadband networks in 2013.

The fixed-line market by contrast has moved along a much additional subdued path. The number of fixed-line subscribers having peaked in 2010, the market has gone into a steady decline. There were no real signs that the fixed-line market was going to pick up again, this despite the government still having some rather ambitious targets in place. The national fixed-line network nevertheless remains an significant element in the building and ongoing operation of the country’s telecom infrastructure.

As by presently noted, the adoption of broadband internet has been the large news in Malaysia over the last few years. Finally the long awaited surge in internet request has arrived, this happening next a period of slower than expected development. High speed broadband initial started to take off in 2008; by early 2014 there were over six million broadband subscribers with around 60% of these being wireless-based. The arrival of wireless broadband overwhelmed a market before dominated by Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology. Telekom Malaysia had been the dominant broadband service provider. Even this was being challenged as the market opened up and mobile broadband became additional widespread. At the same time fibre-based broadband services have as well started to impact the market.

The country’s broadband strategy was given a major boost at the same time as the government chose Telekom Malaysia to roll out a National Broadband Network (NBN). In what was referred to as the High-Speed Broadband (HSBB) project, Telekom Malaysia (TM) has been busy building a fibre-based open system. In late 2013, as part of its 2014 budget announcement, the government committed a further US$1 billion for the second phase of the HSBB project.

 

Broadband Market
Malaysia continues to heavily promote itself as an Data Technology hub in the Asia region. On the back of the Multimedia Super Corridor project, it is authentic that high-tech companies have at least been establishing a presence in Malaysia. But for some time the wider community was not really embracing technology. In relative terms, there had been a surprisingly low interest in broadband Internet. The national broadband penetration was around 9% by end-2009. This was despite the government having launched a National Broadband Plan which was targeting 15% penetration by 2010. One of the bright spots has been WiFi, as the service providers start to roll out their hotspot' services. And presently that the government has issued some WiMAX licences, this platform is something that will be watched with interest. An extra major push towards wider broadband adoption will be evident as Telekom Malaysia's roll-out of its High-Speed Broadband network proceeds over the next few years.


Broadcasting
With its history of tight censorship laws, Malaysia did not open up the television broadcasting market to private operators until 1995. Despite this, the proportion of Malaysian households that have a television set has risen to over 95%. There are six FTA TV channels and additional than 100 pay TV channels offering a wide range of local and foreign programs in a broad selection of languages. Of particular note has been the strong increase of satellite TV operator, Astro.

Internet Services
There is an increasing awareness of technology in Malaysia. With the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project and the government's commitment to a technological society, a large number of high tech companies from around the world have set up a presence in Malaysia. But efforts at encouraging the wider community to embrace technology have so far not been totally successful. Dial-up Internet access has grown steadily, but for a long time there was very little interest in broadband Internet. By 2008 and into 2009, however, things were starting to get interesting in the broadband access market. The promulgation of the National Broadband Plan by the government in 2008 signalled a fresh push to expand Internet access throughout the country.

Key Statistics, Telecommunications Overview and Major Players
A lot of of the players in Malaysia's telecommunications sector were seriously affected by the economic crisis of the late 1990s. Despite this, there has been strong increase in the sector over the last decade. Fixed-line services jumped from around 2 million in 1990 to about 4.7 million (penetration of 20%) in 2002, but there has been virtually no increase since. The mobile market has been additional spectacular, jumping from 3 million subscribers in 1999 to reach around 28 million by end-2008.

Mobile Communications - Major Mobile Operators
The changing landscape of the Malaysian mobile market has over time witnessed the restructuring of all the major players. The government has been a strong supporter of the rationalisation of what had been seen as an overcrowded' market at times. A particularly significant merger between Telekom and Celcom took place early on, creating a lot of interest. At the same time, but with less fanfare, Maxis acquired Time dotCom's mobile unit. These changes resulted in the number of operators being entirely reduced from five to three. The allocation of 3G licences has as well been controversial with one of the operators initially missing out again picking up one in a surprising fashion. By end-2009 Maxis Communications had a mobile subscriber base of 12.3 million, with Celcom in second place on 9.2 million, while DiGi was number three with 7.7 million subscribers. U Mobile, a new operator with its exclusively 3G offering, was trailing the field with an estimated 1.2 million subscribers at the time.

Internet country code: 

.my

Communications note: