Altimo Index highlights Africa as becoming increasingly attractive for telecoms investors

Altimo is pleased to release the Sixth edition of the Altimo Index, computed on the basis of the mobile industry data for Q1 2009 – Q3 2009.

• The Sixth Altimo Index shows sensational growth in Africa, which is fast becoming a leading investment target for telecoms investors. Having traditionally been one of Index outsiders, we predict that overall in Africa mobile penetration rate will exceed 50% by 2012.

 

• Markets in South East Asian (SEA) and South Asian (SA) show signs of saturation with  countries like Indonesia, China, Vietnam becoming close to their investment- attractiveness peak, eg, in Vietnam, the nominal penetration rate is close to 100%. We predict the investors’ interest in most of SEA and SE markets will start to decline in 2011.

 

• The CIS markets are demonstrating fast recovery from the economic crisis with increasing profit margins compared to 2008. Operators have improved the quality of their subscriber base, which has resulted in steady growth in Minutes of Use (MOU) and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). The CIS region remains an attractive target for mobile investments in the medium term.

 

• The MOU figure in 2009 will be higher than the 2008 level in the majority of markets, especially in Africa, Middle East, and Latin America, which could result in renewed ARPU growth, provided that these economies emerge from recession soon.

 

• The financial crisis precipitated a wave of consolidation in the international telecommunications markets, producing strong global players with the ability to upgrade their networks swiftly to 4G. The consolidation will give additional impetus to fast increase of mobile telecom penetration levels worldwide, leaving the traditional landline industry heading for oblivion at a faster rate than predicted. 

 

Kirill Babaev, CEO of the Altimo Foundation, said: “Africa is fast emerging as one of the most potentially attractive areas of the world for telecoms investors. Its emergence comes as the traditional strong-growth economies of South-East Asian and South Asia reach saturation point in terms of mobile penetration, at the same time as the developed economies look set to be given fresh impetus from developments in 4G.”  

 

Altimo
Kirill Babaev                                     +7 (495) 981 4452    
 
Cubitt Consulting
Simon Brocklebank-Fowler/Michael Henman/Caroline Merrell      + 44 (0) 207 367 5100
           

 

Notes to editors

 

The Altimo Index

 

Altimo is a leading $15 billion international investment group specialising in telecoms and acting in Russia, the CIS countries, and Turkey.

The Altimo Index was launched in March 2007 and is a product of a joint initiative by professors from three leading academic institutions: Cambridge University, London Business School, and New Economic School (Moscow). Its objective is to produce a regular, practical review of the attractiveness to investors of the world’s national mobile telecoms markets.  The index is made up of country specific data on the difference between the predicted and actual average mobile spending per capita, earnings, growth in penetration rate, capital expenditure relative to revenue and population
The Index is updated every six months, and allows Altimo to follow development trends and make reliable forecasts for the future of the mobile industry in 94 markets worldwide.