5G enterprise use cases are expected to drive revenue growth for telcos in Asean.
Revenue opportunities in that space for telcos include project-based revenues, leasing revenues, subscription revenues, and usage-based revenues.
However, JP Morgan believes that “many of these revenue opportunities could be limited. Usage-based revenues enabled by edge computing could be the most lucrative, but telcos will have to compete with on-premises builds, hyperscalers, and major IT vendors. Hence, for most non-Chinese telcos, we see currently see limited 5G revenues in the mid-term,” states its 5G in Asia report on June 15, 2023.
Second-order benefit is to support ongoing supply chain shifts
According to the same report, productivity gains emerging from 5G and edge computing could have the second-order impact of supporting ongoing supply chain shifts to areas where labour availability might have been an impediment.
This could benefit especially manufacturers in Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. For instance, Singtel will deploy customised 5G solutions at Micron’s clean room to enable use cases like automated visual inspections and augmented relations applications for operations and maintenance.
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Despite that, JP Morgan notes that “5G services [will] eventually depend on the availability of spectrum, level of re-use, network density, and dedicated fibre backhaul".
