Way Forward
Before this research, mobile penetration rate in Myanmar was estimated to
be around 10% and Internet penetration around 2% in a market of some 60
million customers (Myanmar: Telecom’s Last Frontier, 2014), but as per our
study it may now be anywhere between 30%-40%. While voice call feature was widely used to contact customers, suppliers, family member and
friends, it was not being used to access information because of expensive
internet installation fee and poor connectivity. Few MEs used it for applications such as Viber. A lot of offline applications were being used to transfer files to each other’s phone such as Zapya and Xender. Most MEs had
or preferred using smart touch screen phones and Huawei was the most
common brand found amongst MEs. Considering the popularity of smart
phones, the fact that Myanmar has low internet penetration rate right now,
it is set to change drastically by October with the two new telecom players
Telenor and Ooredo entering the market. Our research shows that Myanmar will potentially experience a leapfrogging in mobile technology in the
coming years and will start to using internet applications on smart phones.
Increasing mobile penetration, connection to the internet (given that infrastructure will soon be in place), rising popularity of smart phones and
use of Burmese language on phones will give rise to opportunity for ICT in
Myanmar’s future.
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