With the 2010 World Expo, Shanghai is shining a spotlight on China’s past, present and future. A new Ericsson ConsumerLab report is turning that spotlight onto the consumer behavior powering the growth, potential and diversity of the world’s biggest telecom market. The report, released in conjunction with the Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) Business Innovation Forum in Shanghai from May 17-19, explores the behaviors, trends and circumstances of China’s nearly 800 million mobile phone subscribers and 380 million internet users.

Singapore, May 17, 2010-There were 2.04 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2009 in Asia and this translated into a significant 22.7% growth over the year. By the end of 2009, mobile accounted for 79.7% of all telephone connections in the region, compared with 60.1% in 2005. The number of mobile subscribers is forecasted to have grown by an average of 10.6% to 3.4 billion by the end of 2014 and at that time, mobile penetration should have reached 94.3%.

Singapore’s future as a regional media hub is under threat as a result of new government rules for the pay-TV industry, said the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA), which represents the interests of 130 content producers, pay-TV platform operators and equipment-and-service suppliers across 16 Asian markets.

At the 2010 NAB Show, World Teleport Association was co-producer of the Destination Broadband Theater in the Upper South Hall. In 16 panel sessions over three days, we focused on two closely-related topics: delivering and monetizing video content delivered over broadband, and how traditional television distribution is evolving in response to the broadband revolution.  

With over one hundred million households, the United States is currently the largest market in the world for broadband services. About sixty percent, or 60 million households currently access broadband services from various sources, mainly terrestrial. Satellite broadband service reach only one million households, or less than 2 percent of broadband households in the U.S. Clearly, there is a lot more room to expand satellite broadband services in the U.S. market and major operators such as Hughes and Viasat are determined to develop the market to its full potential.  

Africa is a continent of contrasts. Endemic poverty and political malfeasance are the most widely understood characteristics, but the nascent market power of an underdeveloped continent with a population that is expected to exceed 1 billion people for the first time in 2010, is staggering.  

Ernst & Young  released a report on the media and entertainment landscape in the emerging markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). The report provides an overview of the latest indicators of market attractiveness, as well as the opportunities, challenges and critical success factors in conducting business in these four countries. 

NSR’s annual review of the broadband satellite market shows that, after a year of uncertainty, the majority of signs indicate the sector made it through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression relatively well. Probably one of the biggest success stories of 2009 was satellite broadband access, where NSR noted that North America set a milestone by becoming the first region to top 1 million subscribers, and Western Europe will likely exceed 100,000 subscribers well before the end of 2010.

The issue of inadequate bandwidth in the world very small aperture terminal (VSAT) market has experienced a conflicting impact: a spurt in service revenues and, simultaneously, a dip in the sales of equipment or hardware. VSAT providers, while pleased with the hike in service revenues, are wary of pricing many potential, cost-sensitive VSAT users out of the market.  

The World Teleport Association announced the release of a new report, What Customers Want. A product of interviews conducted by WTA with senior decision-makers for teleport and satellite customers in the media and entertainment sector, the report explores the thinking process of key buyers in North America and Europe as they are likely to affect their purchases of services and technology from teleport operators and their space segment partners.