Regional Telcos Risk Missing Out On Trillion Dollar Asian Consumer Opportunity: IDC

Asian telecom service providers must reinvent themselves to grasp the trillion dollar Asian consumer opportunity, International Data Corporation (IDC) warns.
IDC believes some of the larger opportunities for regional telecom service providers in 2016 will come from:

• Xcommerce ($540 Bn)

• consumer mobility ($313 Bn)

• smartphones ($188 Bn)

• digital content ($88 Bn)

• Internet/mobile advertising ($29 Bn)

The rapid rise of the Asian consumer is a story that could play out for half of this century with one billion people expected to become middle class by the end of the decade. Global and rising Asian MNCs are radically retooling their strategy and business models to take advantage and realise what could possibly be a period of unprecedented sustained high growth.

The big question: Are telecom service providers in the region savvy enough to modernise and transform themselves in ways that will give them the edge in a consumer driven economy?

“Telcos need to reinvent themselves to accommodate the Asian consumers who have radically reinvented themselves,” said Adrian Dominic Ho, Principal Telecom, Mobility Lead.

He explains that telcos, whose very existence embodied the concept of consumerism for the longest time, prospered with the rise of the Asian consumer spending. “The radical change in the Asian consumer has translated to the emergence and rise of what is called the digital market economy,” he added.

According to Ho, the digital market economy would include everything from content development, application marketplace to mobile advertising and everything Xcommerce.
He points out that the potential and possibilities are only limited by the telcos’ imagination in what is truly a trillion dollar cross-border opportunity for many of them.

“The transformation to digital content service providers for telcos will not happen overnight but it is highly encouraging that telcos like Singtel, Telstra and SK Telecom have set up separate divisions and entities to focus on these exciting new opportunities,” observed Ho.

However, he stresses that an enormous amount of work and new partnerships are required. “In addition, some deep pockets in the form of venture capital investments and seeding investments would also be required.”