New Market Report Now Available: Iraq Telecommunications Report Q3 2012

New Fixed Networks research report from Business Monitor International is now available from Fast Market Research

by Bill Thompson

(WireNews+Co) - Boston, MA - 18 October 2012

BMI's Q312 Iraqi telecommunications market report provides a comprehensive overview of the latest developments to occur within the country's mobile, fixed-line telephony and internet sectors. Our forecast for the mobile market incorporates the latest subscriber data, published by the country's two largest operators, Zain Iraq and Asiacell, for Q112. Data on these two operators are published by Kuwait's Zain Group and by Qtel (for Asiacell). We have also included Q112 subscriber data for Iraq's third mobile operator Korek Telecom, in which French incumbent France Telecom has a 20% stake. There is no change to our forecast for the mobile, fixed-line and internet sectors, as well as our mobile ARPU forecast, as Q112 data are largely in line with our expectations for overall growth in 2012 and the remainder of our forecast period, through 2016.

Based on market data published by the operators, BMI calculates there were 25.231mn mobile subscribers in Iraq at the end of March 2012, reflecting a growth rate of 3.2% q-o-q and 7.1% y-o-y. This was considerably greater than average quarterly growth of 1.2% during 2011 and is in line with our overall growth outlook of 8.9% for 2012. BMI expects stronger growth rates as a result of network expansion investments by the operators, and an increase in competition among them. In future, BMI expects competition to be the main factor driving mobile subscriber growth in Iraq. We expect the possible award of a fourth mobile licence in 2012 to boost competition in the market. Our new mobile subscriber forecast for Iraq envisages just more than 26.6mn users at the end of 2012, equivalent to a penetration rate of 79%. By the end of 2016, we predict that Iraq's mobile penetration rate will have risen to 90.5%.

View Full Report Details and Table of Contents (http://www.fastmr.com/prod/451293_iraq_telecommunications_report_q3_2012.aspx) (http://www.fastmr.com/prod/451293_iraq_telecommunications_report_q3_2012.aspx)

The two major industry developments since our previous update are Qtel's bid to double its stake in Asiacell and the arrival of a new submarine cable in Iraq. In June 2012, Qtel reached an agreement to double its shareholding in Iraq's second biggest mobile operator Asiacell to 60% for US$1.47bn. Asiacell will initially increase its stake to 53.9% with further increases subject to regulatory approval. Also in June Indian telecoms provider Reliance Globalcom connected Iraq to its Falcon cable network at al-Faw cable landing station. The cable station has been built in alliance with Iraqi Telecommunications and Post Company. The landing station will directly connect Iraq to countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America. The cable station has been built with a design capacity of 680Gbps and two diverse routes and will initially offer 50Gbps on each route to serve the existing market demand. BMI expects it to complement the Gulf Bridge International (GBI) submarine cable that was completed in January 2012.

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