KUALA LUMPUR, 27 APRIL 2009 – The mobility market in Malaysia will remain tough for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), according to analyst firm Ovum.
“Seventy-eight per cent of the companies surveyed do not provide wireless devices to any employee needing mobile network connectivity for business purposes,” said Ovum senior analyst, Claudio Castelli. “This suggests that most of the mobile users bring and support their own personal mobile devices and plans when at work.”
“This is a result of the high competition in mobile services as well as behaviour characteristics of the business environment in Malaysia,” said Castelli. “Surprisingly, despite high interest in predictable monthly recurring charges for telecoms equipment and services, not many companies are considering buying specific managed services.”
“This can be accounted for by the immaturity of enterprise offerings and low availability of managed services in this market, which are mainly provided by the incumbent,” he said. “Providers considering exploring managed services opportunities will need to invest in educating customers and increasing awareness of benefits.”
Ovum’s SME survey covered 2,000 companies, with between 20 and 1,000 employees, in 20 countries. Data presented in this report is based on only the 100 companies in Malaysia, which responded to the survey.
Mobile messaging has potential to grow
“Most of the SMEs’ telecoms budget currently goes to fixed services, with fixed voice still accounting for 50 per cent the total SME expenditure,” said Castelli. “Despite the growing number of mobile users, expenditure on mobile services (voice and data) is small and currently accounts for only 10 per cent, while the global average is 32 per cent. SMEs in Malaysia spend proportionately less on mobile services than any of the other countries in our survey.”
“SMS and mobile e-mail are the most popular applications across SMEs, and still have potential to grow, especially mobile e-mail,” said Castelli. “Mobile IM and multimedia applications offer a green field to be explored, with a few SMEs willing to deploy them in the next few years. However, excitement about applications is not backed by investment commitments, which makes this market challenging for applications suppliers.”
“SMEs in Malaysia are very price-sensitive but will continue spending in telecommunications during the current economic climate,” he added. “Eighty-eight per cent of the companies surveyed believe that investing in the latest telecoms solutions can make their business more successful. They will focus on business efficiency and will avoid considerable up-front capital investments.”
