Hanoi Times – The Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam will be the three top markets for mobile telecom investment in the near future, according to research by Altimo, an international investment group o­n telecom.

Altimo has released its research of mobile development index and the investment opportunities in world mobile telecom. The index was made by Altimo in cooperation with Cambridge University, London Business University and Russia Economics University.

Based o­n statistics o­n mobile telecom and macroeconomics from the third quarter of 2006 to the second quarter of 2007, Altimo and the above universities created investment indexes for 77 markets in the world.

Here are some of the major results of the research:

South Asia and East Asia will be the key regions for investment in mobile telecom in the 2008-2012 periods, thanks to sustainable economic development and the increase of mobile subscribers and mobile phone tele-density.

Notably, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam will be the three top markets for mobile telecom investment in the near future.

India will see a remarkable reduction due to tense competition and stable growth of mobile subscribers.

East Europe will develop at a slower pace for the first time owing to low telecom investment profit, which originates from high mobile tele-density, stable income, and moderate development prospects. The investment opportunities are akin to stable markets in West Europe and North America.

Africa is unsuitable for short-term investment because of its poor economic growth potentials. Profit for investment will become clearer in 2012. However, there are some real opportunities at present, for example in Algeria, Angola and Tunisia.

The global mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) fell by 2% in the past six months and the reduction may continue in 2008-2009.

The development of and competition in technology will make production costs decrease till new added value services are accepted.

The percentage of mobile subscribers in the world is still low, around 45% now, so development potentials for the mobile telecom industry will be still fruitful at least to 2010-2011.