صنعت ارتباطات از راه دور در ایران- سه ماهه سوم 2015

BMI Industry View

BMI View: Iran's telecoms market is an underperformer in the Middle East as a result of political and economic risks, exacerbated by currency depreciation, which is limiting access to the latest devices.

However, the Iranian government is making headway in the process of lifting the sanctions and is adding upside to our outlook. BMI's Country Risk team has made a slight upward revision to our economic growth forecast for Iran, in anticipation of a deal with the West in July 2015, projecting real GDP growth to pick up from 0.6% in 2015, to 2.9% in 2016 and 3.6% in 2017. This is also likely to have a positive impact on the mobile market and potentially attract more foreign investment. Although the mobile penetration in Iran is relatively high at 136.1%, BMI believes that there is further scope for growth. Data services, in particular, will grow at an average rate of 36.2% CAGR over the next five years.

Key Data

■ We estimate that fixed-line connections increased by 3.0% in 2014 and we expect growth to slow down in the forecast period because of fixed-mobile substitution and a greater focus on mobile services from fixed incumbent TCI.

■ We estimate that the country ended 2014 with over 111mn subscribers, boosted by MTN's performance in the latter part of the year after it launched 3G services.

■ We estimate there were around 9.9mn 3G subscriptions at the end of 2014 and forecast a figure of 18.9mn at the end of 2015 and we expect the rapid growth to continue over the short term as more operators launch advanced services.

Key Trends And Developments

On April 2, members of the P5+1 - the US, the UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany - agreed to lift sanctions against the Islamic Republic once a final deal on its nuclear programme is reached. The deadline for negotiations is June 30. BMI believes it to be likely that the sanctions will be lifted and as a result, our country risk team upgraded its forecast for Iranian economic growth. This could also attract more interest from the foreign investors to the Iranian mobile market. As a positive development, South Africa-based MTN Group has stated that easing of sanctions against Iran would enable it to transfer around USD1bn accumulated dividends and a loan repayment from its Iranian subsidiary. The company has thus far been restricted from taking money out from its Iranian subsidiary.

Iran's nascent 3G/4G market is expanding and BMI forecasts it to grow an average of 36.2% over the next five years to 2019. MTN Irancell joined Rightel in offering 3G services in the country, launching its network in August 2014. The operator also launched the country's first 4G network in December 2014, looking to take a lead in the mobile data market. In April 2015, only eight months after launching its 3G network, MTN Irancell claimed that the number of data subscribers on its network has increased to more than 21mn, including 7mn on its 3G and 4G networks. The operator now offers 3G services in more than 200 cities and has introduced its 4G network in more than 50 cities throughout the country.

گزارش تحلیلی بیزینس مانیتور- صنعت ارتباطات از راه دور در ایران- سه ماهه سوم 2015