Results
Singapore
has secured the top position in this year’s Asia Pacific Telecommunications
Index (see Fig. 1.1)
while Hong Kong has moved up one place to secure the second spot.Australia
and Japan take third and fourth place respectively.The
study once again confirms previous years’ findings that the region is led
by Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Japan, all of which contend closely
for the position of most competitive telecommunications hub in the region.
As
in the previous years, there is a very small margin between the top ranked
economies.This year, the difference
in rating between top-ranked Singapore and third-ranked Australia is just
1.7% points.
New Zealand maintains fifth position while Taiwan and Malaysia have moved up to sixth and seventh place respectively.
Conducted
between August – November 2000 by the Centre for TeleMedia Strategy, National
University of Singapore, the study surveyed 67 top corporate telecommunications
end users for their rating for telecoms service provision in 13 economies:
Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia,
New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
The Index is made up of a
weighted average of four sub-indexes rating account and technical service,
pricing, choice, and regulation.
service
The
service sub-index is derived from a survey which requires end users to
rate the dominant service provider in terms of account service as well
as the technical quality of three services – IDD, leased circuits and frame
relay.The service sub-index combines
these ratings.Fig. 1.2
represents the service sub-index.
Singapore
(SingTel) takes top placing with a very marginal lead over Japan (KDD)
which has been the leader in service since the inception of this study
in 1998. Hong Kong (Pacific Century HKT), New Zealand (NZ Telecom) and
Australia (Telstra) secured the third, fourth and fifth positions respectively,
just as they had done last year.
Competition
is increasing as the gap between the first and fourth ranked service provider
has narrowed with less than 5% points separating them.In
contrast, the gap between the top ranked service provider and the last
has widened.
pricing
Fig.
1.3
reports the pricing sub-index. This sub-index is based on the dominant
service provider’s list prices for the three services (IDD, leased circuits,
and frame relay) and its average discount off the list price as reported
by our end user survey.This sub-index
is constructed in such a way that a higher rating on the sub-index represents
lower prices and, hence, greater competitiveness.
Singapore
(SingTel) takes the lead in price this year. It has substantially reduced
rates for all services.This, coupled
with the lower exchange rate of the Singapore dollar against the US$, has
made Singapore (SingTel) top in terms of pricing this year.Australia
(Telstra), last year’s leader, dropped to third place
Hong
Kong (Pacific Century HKT) moved up one place to secure second position
and Taiwan is fourth.
Choice
Fig.
1.4
reports the choice sub-index.It
is motivated by the assumption that telecommunications users will switch
to alternative providers if the dominant carrier provides poor service
or charges high prices.
The
choice sub-index is the simple average of the percentage expenditure incurred
with local and global alternatives to the dominant provider and the end
users’ rating of the degree of competition in the economy.
This
year, Japan is first, followed by Australia then Hong Kong.Japan,
Australia and Hong Kong are in very close competition with only 0.2% points
between them.Both Hong Kong and
Singapore have shown significant improvement as the race to be Asia’s telecommunications
hub hots up.Hong Kong has climbed
3 places while Singapore has moved from eighth to fifth place. This may
be attributed to the rapid deregulation of their markets.
regulation
Figure
1.5
reports the regulation sub-index, which is based on end users’ rating of
the transparency of regulation and regulator’s responsiveness to business
needs.New
Zealand, one of the least regulated telecommunications markets in the world,
takes the lead in this sub-Index.Australia
dropped to second place, while Hong Kong and Singapore overtook Japan to
take third and fourth place respectively.
