MYANMAR Telecommunications Industry Report, 2020-2025

MYANMAR Telecommunications Industry Report, 2020-2025

This report provides analyses of revenue and market forecasts as well as statistics of the Myanmar telecoms industry including market sizing, 5-year forecasts, market insights, key telecom trends, 5G and also features the following:

Overall Telecommunications Market by Major Operators
Telco Operators Profile, Revenue and EBITDA Mix
Mobile Subscribers & Revenue Market Overview and Forecasts
Spectrum Holdings
IoT Market Overview
Telecoms Infrastructure Review: Towers, backbone fibre, submarine cables & data centres
Broadband Subscribers & Revenue Market Overview and Forecasts
National Broadband Network Detailed Market Overview and Forecasts
Thematics / Opportunities relating to 5G, M&A and e-Commerce
Telco M&A Transaction Database
About this report:
Pages: 66
Author: Landry Fevre
Publication Date: February 2021

Myanmar Telecoms Industry Report – 2020-2025 quantityADD TO CART
Category: Myanmar Tags: 4G, 5BB Broadband, Hyalroute, IGT, Irrawaddy Green Tower, MFONC, MPT, MyanmarNet, Mytel, Ooredoo, PAMEL, Telenor, YTP
The Myanmar Telecommunications Industry Report, 2020-2025 includes a comprehensive review of the Burmese market dynamics, market sizing, market forecasts, analysis, insights and key trends.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Myanmar Telecoms Industry Report at a Glance

Globally, the telecommunications sector is proving to be a core and essential infrastructure service to national economies, with data infrastructure becoming critical in a connected world and will likely increasingly attract a new class of investors such as large infrastructure funds. Idem Est Research expects the Burmese telecommunications industry to remain steady thanks to the defensiveness nature of the industry, amid the political uncertainties and an uncertain economic outlook due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Myanmar is among the fastest developing telecommunications market in the world, mainly driven by the late investments from 2014 onwards. Myanmar, once labelled one of the world’s most repressive, censored and underdeveloped telecommunications sectors, has adopted a host of reforms to rapidly improve the nation’s economy and quality of life of its citizens.

Idem Est Research expects the Burmese telecommunications industry to continue its expansion thanks to the defensiveness of the sector and despite the social and public health impacts, amid an uncertain political and economic outlook due to the 2021 military coup and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Growing mobile phone penetration and high fixed broadband take-up among households will fuel future growth over the next five years.

Following the market expansion over the last 5 years, Idem Est Research forecasts subdued revenue growth growing to 2025, with the Covid-19 pandemic, the diminishing impact of declining legacy voice and SMS revenue and low population growth.

Fixed lines subscriptions remains very small and stagnating while fixed broadband is slowly taking off with subscriptions comprising mostly of FTTH connections, broadband fibre investments are emerging and growth is expected to flow through over the forecast period.

The telecommunications market is dominated by one large incumbent integrated operator – Myanmar Post Telecommunications – with mobile and fixed infrastructure competing with three other mobile operators, Ooredoo Myanmar, Telenor Myanmar and MyTel and emerging fibre broadband operators, YTP, MyanmarNet and 5BB Broadband.

Overall revenue share shifted to the new entrants at the expense of MPT over the 2014-2019 period. The telecommunications revenue profile highlights the expansion of Ooredoo Myanmar and Telenor Myanmar from a standing start in 2014 while MPT faced pressure in its mobile business facing off the new entrants and registering a decline in revenue from 2014 to 2017

Capex Investments

The Capex to GDP ratio soared from 2014 after decades of under-investments in the sector after Ooredoo and Telenor won mobile licenses. Both operators started to invest heavily in the market with the ratio reaching during the build phase in 2014 and 2015 and stabilised in 2019 and 2020. Idem Est research estimates that the ratio will remain stable but lower throughout the 2021-25 forecast period.The Capex to GDP ratio spiked between 2012 and 2014 and started to slide downwards and growing from 2019 onwards.

Overall Capex investments are still lagging behind compared to other South-Asian countries as the market opened up to competition only in 2014 and after a steep take-up phase leading to high mobile penetration, operators are taking stock of their strategies and looking for profitability in a highly competitive market. Fixed broadband investments are only emerging with MPT investing in fibre-to-the-home infrastructure followed by smaller providers looking for an early land grab in this nascent greenfield market.

The Capex from telecommunications operators grew from nearly zero investments in 2000 to explode from 2013 onwards, as foreign investments flowed through via mobile operators building out their 4G coverage, increasing capacity to fulfil strong data demand and increased smartphones take-up. Idem Est Research expects Capex spend to grow strongly between 2019 to 2025.

Operator Profiles

The Burmese four-player mobile market is a very competitive, having achieved over 90% 4G population coverage, all operators are broadening their range of services to FTTH and e-commerce.

Between 2014 and 2020, both MPT lost revenue and EBITDA share to Telenor and Ooredoo over the last seven years, Mytel grew strongly at the expense of mostly Ooredoo and Telenor managing to grow a significant share in just two years of operations.

Mobile Subscribers and Revenue

Average annual mobile revenue growth was lower than mobile service subscriptions growth during the period 2014-2020, highlighting the competitve challenges faced by mobile operators. Declining voice & SMS revenue only partially offset by wireless data monetisation is putting pressure on ARPU, compounded by bundling discounts to stem churn.

According to our benchmark study of mobile data pricing, Myanmar remains among he most expensive South East Asian countries, despite the big cost reduction per GB over the last 3 years, while India has the lowest rate in the world with just a few cents per GB.

Broadband Subscribers – FTTH Push to more townships

The Burmese fixed broadband is one the last frontier in terms of telecommunications opportunity in the Asia Pacific market, it is vastly underdeveloped, underinvested and is just attracting new investments from large and small local investors. The Burmese fixed broadband market has among the lowest household penetration in the world. The market started to grow after private broadband operators such as 5BB Broadband, YTP, MyanmarNet started to invest in FTTH initially in large cities. MPT also is investing in FTTH covering the most townships (64 out of 351) with its Dome Pyan Fibre Internet product.

Thematics – Telecoms Infrastructure / 5G / M&A / Infrastructure

Infrastructure funds, pension funds and government funds are assigning high valuation multiples to telecommunications infrastructure assets such as mobile towers, data centres, submarine cable and fibre infrastructure.

Investment funds are assigning high valuation multiples to telecommunications infrastructure assets such as mobile towers, data centres, submarine cable and fibre infrastructure. This report outlines some real market examples of how investors view and value these investments with real industry examples and EV/EBITDA comparatives and benchmarks.

Our Myanmar Telecoms Industry Report transactions database analysis highlights the dearth of inbound (domestic) transactions in the Myanmar telecommunications services market, with the largest transactions from private equity firms bulking up their mobile tower portfolios and consolidating their position by acquiring smaller operators. Most other transactions are expected in the data centre, IoT and cloud computing sector with local operators investing in e-Commerce and enterprise services.

The arrival of 4G moved the Internet off our desktops into our palms and pockets, 5G could transform the network from something we carry around to something taking us around either virtually (augmented reality or virtual reality) or in reality (autonomous vehicles), the 5G outcome and benefits beyond fast connectivity remain largely unknown in terms of business models, investments required and timeline.

KEY COMPANIES MENTIONED IN THIS MYANMAR TELECOMS INDUSTRY REPORT:

5BB Broadband, Hyalroute (MFOCN), Irrawaddy Green Tower (IGT) Myanmar Post & Telecommunications (MPT), MyanmarNet, Mytel, Ooredoo Myanmar, Telenor Myanmar, YTP