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A small wealthy nation in South East Asia, Brunei made early moves to ensure that it was delivering up to date telecommunications services to its population. The target of 100% digitalization was achieved in 1995. Telecommunications infrastructure and services throughout Brunei are of a generally high standard and the country ranks well in Asia in terms of both telecom service penetration and infrastructure facilities. Brunei’s mobile penetration, which stood at an already healthy 32% by 2001, has continued to grow strongly and coming into 2010 it had reached a penetration of 105%.
Despite enjoying one of the highest standards of living in Asia, Brunei’s economic growth has not matched its population growth. As a consequence, GDP growth has been slower than the regional and global averages. GDP growth declined from 4.5% in 2006 to a little over 0.5% in 2007. By early 2009 the global economic crisis seemed to have had limited impact on Brunei, mainly because the country was not heavily exposed to the global capital markets. The country’s banks were also well placed to manage any period of economic difficulty. Nevertheless, the country was certainly not isolated from what was happening globally; the fall in oil prices triggered by the global economic crisis saw Brunei’s GDP fall by 1.5% in 2008. The economy recovered sufficiently for GDP growth of 0.2% in 2009. The IMF forecast GDP would grow by 0.6% in 2010.
It is not surprising that the citizens of Brunei are strong consumers of telecom services, given the level of encouragement from the government. Despite this, if the country is to continue to maintain the pace required to be globally competitive, it must further restructure and generally liberalize the local telecom industry. Brunei’s telecom regulator, the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AiTi), was established in 2003.
The local market continues to be dominated by Jabatan Telekom Brunei, the incumbent telco that remains a division within the Ministry of Communications (MoC). In a significant move, the Department of Economic Planning and Development announced in 2006 that the corporatisation of JTB had been approved. A step in the right direction; however, much remains to be done in the area of sector reform.
Brunei – Key Telecom Parameters – 2009 – 2010
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Category
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2009
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2010
(e)
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Fixed-line
services:
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Total
number of subscribers1
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80,500
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80,000
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Annual
change
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0%
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-1%
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Fixed-line
penetration (population)
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19%
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18%
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Internet:
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Total
number of subscribers1
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32,000
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40,000
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Annual
change
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34%
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25%
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Internet
subscriber penetration
(population)
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8%
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10%
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Internet
subscriber penetration
(household)
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46%
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58%
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Mobile
services:
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Total
number of subscribers
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426,300
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450,000
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Annual
change
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6%
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5%
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Mobile
penetration (population)
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105%
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109%
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Market highlights:
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Brunei’s booming mobile market reached a penetration of 105% in early 2010;
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Around 85% of Brunei’s Internet subscribers have high-speed broadband access;
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Fixed-line penetration in Brunei, having reached a healthy 26% by 2001, has been in decline since then and had slipped to around 19% by 2009;
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Reports in 2009 suggested that Brunei had managed to limit the damage the global financial crisis might otherwise have caused to the local economy.
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