IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/itsb12/72493.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cambodia mobile telecommunication market: Opportunities and challenges

Author

Listed:
  • Vong, Sokha
  • Lee, Duk Hee
  • Zo, Hangjung

Abstract

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become a necessity in social and economic development and is a leading sector to enable and drive growth in other sectors in Cambodia such as education, agriculture, and health. Recently, the mobile telecom service market in Cambodia has demonstrated rapid growth, which is jumping off the fixed-line, with a penetration rate of 75.27% of the total population by the end of 2010. Despite this rapid growth rate, the mobile telecom service market in Cambodia faces a number of key challenges. There seems to be excessive competition in the mobile telecom service market due to the number of operators (eight active operators). In the short term, this market favors demand side rather than supply side by lowering prices. Consumers' welfare increases with the lower prices resulting from heavy competition. Also the dominant market players gain relatively higher profits while those of the less-dominant players have been squeezed by increasing market polarization. Furthermore, there is a lack of sector policy framework, Telecommunication Law, which means government Ad hoc regulations are implemented in the market to resolve the issues. These factors will contribute to market failure and lower market efficiency in the long run. This study examines the competitive environment of the mobile phone market in Cambodia to identify what the challenges are and how to overcome them through the involvement stakeholders in the mobile phone market in Cambodia. In addition, we criticize the current static efficiency-based market performance. We analyze various data including relevant government documents, operators' data, and materials from relevant websites. Furthermore, a survey was conducted with 150 people to examine the consumers' assessment on the experiences of mobile telecom services usage. The expected results will verify that the current static efficiency-based policy framework results in a stagnant market and is lacking sustainable driving force, which needs to be resolved in the dynamic perspective. Finally, we propose future policy framework for the dynamic efficiency enhancement in the market.

Suggested Citation

  • Vong, Sokha & Lee, Duk Hee & Zo, Hangjung, 2012. "Cambodia mobile telecommunication market: Opportunities and challenges," 19th ITS Biennial Conference, Bangkok 2012: Moving Forward with Future Technologies - Opening a Platform for All 72493, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:itsb12:72493
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/72493/1/742717844.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. The Editors, 2010. "The Pacific Review," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 816-816.
    2. Madden, Gary, 0. "Economic welfare and universal service," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1-2), pages 110-116, February.
    3. Christodoulou, Kostis & Vlahos, Kiriakos, 0. "Implications of regulation for entry and investment in the local loop," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(10-11), pages 743-757, October.
    4. Bourreau, Marc & Dogan, Pinar, 2004. "Service-based vs. facility-based competition in local access networks," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 287-306, June.
    5. Das, Nibedita, 2000. "Technology, efficiency and sustainability of competition in the Indian telecommunications sector," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 133-154, June.
    6. Choi, Sujin, 2011. "Facilities to service based competition, not service to facilities based, for broadband penetration: A comparative study between the United States and South Korea," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 804-817.
    7. Madhurjya Kumar Dutta & Sokros Chann & Tyler Marcus & Sarong Vit-Kory & Sopiseth Lim, 2009. "PC Penetration in Cambodia," Trade Working Papers 22769, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Choi, Sujin, 2011. "Facilities to service based competition, not service to facilities based, for broadband penetration: A comparative study between the United States and South Korea," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 804-817.
    2. Hrovatin, Nevenka & Švigelj, Matej, 2013. "The interplay of regulation and other drivers of NGN deployment: A real-world perspective," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 836-848.
    3. Sangwon Lee & Seonmi Lee & Hyemin Joo & Yoonjae Nam, 2021. "Examining Factors Influencing Early Paid Over-The-Top Video Streaming Market Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Klein, Gordon J. & Wendel, Julia, 2014. "The impact of local loop and retail unbundling," 20th ITS Biennial Conference, Rio de Janeiro 2014: The Net and the Internet - Emerging Markets and Policies 106845, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    5. Rajabiun, Reza & Middleton, Catherine, 2013. "Regulation, investment and efficiency in the transition to next generation networks: Evidence from the European Union," 24th European Regional ITS Conference, Florence 2013 88536, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    6. P.W.J. De Bijl, 2005. "Structural Separation and Access in Telecommunications Markets," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, Intersentia, vol. 6(2), pages 95-115, June.
    7. Vitor Miguel Ribeiro, 2018. "Dark fiber price regulation in the absence of facilities-based competition," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 45(2), pages 243-278, June.
    8. Xia, Jun, 2016. "Universal service policy in China (I): Institutional elements and ecosystem," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 242-252.
    9. Keizo Mizuno & Ichiro Yoshino, 2015. "Overusing a bypass under cost-based access regulation: underinvestment with spillovers," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 29-57, February.
    10. Pio Baake & Ulrich Kamecke, 2006. "New Networks, Competition and Regulation," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 568, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Fink, Carsten & Mattoo, Aaditya & Rathindran, Randeep, 2001. "Liberalizing basic telecommunications : the Asian experience," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2718, The World Bank.
    12. Díaz, Gonzalo Ruiz, 2022. "Private participation in government-led backbone network projects: Lessons from three Latin American experiments," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8).
    13. Baranes, Edmond & Bourreau, Marc, 2005. "An Economist's Guide to Local Loop Unbundling," MPRA Paper 2510, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Bender, Christian M. & Götz, Georg, 2010. "Coexistence of service- and facility-based competition: The relevance of access prices for "make-or-buy"-decisions," 21st European Regional ITS Conference, Copenhagen 2010: Telecommunications at new crossroads - Changing value configurations, user roles, and regulation 3, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    15. Renata Sliwa, 2015. "Facility-based competition — toward more deregulation in telecommunications sector," Ekonomia i Prawo, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 14(2), pages 261-273, June.
    16. Fabritz, Nadine & Falck, Oliver, 2013. "Investment in broadband infrastructure under local deregulation: Evidence from the UK broadband market," 24th European Regional ITS Conference, Florence 2013 88513, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    17. Harald Gruber & Pantelis Koutroumpis, 2013. "Competition enhancing regulation and diffusion of innovation: the case of broadband networks," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 168-195, April.
    18. Gruber, Harald & Koutroumpis, Pantelis, 2011. "Procompetitive infrastructure sector regulation and diffusion of innovation: The case of broadband networks," 22nd European Regional ITS Conference, Budapest 2011: Innovative ICT Applications - Emerging Regulatory, Economic and Policy Issues 52161, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    19. Vogelsang Ingo, 2013. "The Endgame of Telecommunications Policy? A Survey," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 64(3), pages 193-270, December.
    20. Marc Bourreau & Pinar Dogan, 2006. ""Build-or-Buy" Strategies in the Local Loop," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 72-76, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Telecommunication Policy; Cambodia; Mobile Phone Market;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:itsb12:72493. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.itsworld.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.