THE INCREASING use of mobile broadband applications is expected to drive the growth of telecommunications companies in Southeast Asia, where the market for traditional call and text services is now close to reaching its saturation point.

In its latest Southeast Asia Wireless Outlook, research firm Frost & Sullivan said the country?s low broadband penetration indicates huge room for growth.

However, the report said companies in Asia Pacific needed to look for ways to keep margins up, with the growth in mobile Internet usage far outpacing the increase in revenues.

?Last year marked a tipping point for service growth drivers in Southeast Asia?and the rest of Asia?as data services revenues, reaching $7.1 billion, drove 60 percent of Southeast Asia?s total revenue growth,? Frost & Sullivan senior analyst Nicolas Khoo said in a statement.

The firm also found that data usage in this market?covering seven Southeast Asian nations?will grow to account for 40.4 percent or over $12.4 billion of total mobile revenue by end-2015, up from 27.8 percent last year.

Southeast Asia is at the beginning of another wave of mobile data services, enabled by exponentially improved networks and device capabilities.

In the Philippines, Frost & Sullivan noted that Internet connections stood at 27 percent of the population, with broadband accounting for only 5 percent. This, it said, indicated potential for considerable growth.

The growing appeal of broadband services will also drive the increase in postpaid accounts in the Philippines, which is a largely prepaid market.

But the biggest challenge for local firms is the decline in average revenue per user (ARPU) numbers.

Last year, Frost & Sullivan said ARPUs in the Philippines stood at $3.74 a month, lower by 15 percent year on year.

By 2015, the firm expects this to decline further to $2.99 a month.