Indonesia has the largest number of Facebook and Twitter users in Asia

good story this week in the NY Times on the online society of Indonesia:

“According to data from Facebook, Indonesia trails only the United States, with 116 million users, and Britain, with 24 million”.

Indonesia Market Research Notes 2010

Indonesia is South-East Asia’s largest economy and the third biggest democracy in the world. It avoided the global recession and its economy expanded by more than 6 percent between 2006 and 2008. Foreign exchange reserves have risen to US$69 billion.

The Indonesian Government has promised to spend US$140 billion on infrastructure over the next five years and its economy is expected to grow by at least 5.2 per cent this year, according to Bank Indonesia.

Also noted this week, the incumbent telco Telkom,  told Reuters that acquisitions in 2010 are planned, and would initially focus on IT services and media companies.  The firm is due to sign a deal with a local IT service firm, which is aimed at strengthening its non-core businesses.
Telkom president director Rinaldi Firmansyah added last week that the company was eyeing to purchase three telecommunication application service providers this year. Telkom plans to use one of the acquisitions to develop an online healthcare practice.

Indonesia Tech Growth in 2010

As January 2010 comes to a close, we sees a very healthy pipeline of  new deals in 2010, s as the operating environment improves for country.  Already many CIOs are working an increased  IT budget which is very different from a year ago. There are a lot  tenders and proposals being issued.

Part of the 2010 optimism comes from the many  foreign investors coming into the Indonesia economy on its strong economic outlook as well as its high yield. The stock market jumped over 80 percent last year  – as investors have been attracted by the  proposition that relatively stable politics and healthy economic growth could put Indonesia at investment-grade status in a few years – same as the BRIC nations Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Indonesia’s Virtualization Wave Led by VMware in 2010

There were a number if important  infrastructure trends in Indonesia, but IMHO, the biggest may have been the changing shape of the data center market.  Led by market leader VMware, virtualization is not just a one-off IT project to enable more efficient utilization of hardware, but is a strategic approach to build the data center of the future.

We’re forecasting over 200% growth in 2010 for Indonesia’s virtualization software and services market.

Indonesia Wireless Market 2010

One of the key factors behind the huge wireless growth in Indonesia has been the deployment of very cost effective telecoms gear from Chinese telecommunication vendor Huawei.   So, it’s refreshing to see that Huawei established two major training centers and a Research & Development (R&D) center in Indonesia.  According to Huawei Technology Investment President Director Ma Yue “the training centers are expected to graduate 1,500 Indonesian telecommunication technicians each year.”

Indonesia’s Telkomsel to launch iPhone 3GS January 2010

Happy New Year – Apple’s 3GS available in Indonesia!!

As most of you know, the 3GS is externally the sames as the iPhone 3G. But with the 3GS, Apple provides a stronger  CPU, new internal compass, larger capacities for storage, and improved optics for its camera. Plus as well,  the release of the 3GS coincides with iPhone OS 3.0, a huge jump from previous versions of the system software, and provides features like cut, copy, and paste, stereo Bluetooth, MMS, tethering, video recording, and an iPhone version of Spotlight.

Indonesia Top Enterprise Information Technology Projects for 2010

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software
Business Intelligence (BI) Software
Server Virtualization
Desktop Virtualization
Cloud Computing
Voice over IP (VoIP)
Green IT Initiatives

Indonesia Ranked #10 Globally in 3G Subscriber Growth according to Morgan Stanley

It’s as we’ve been saying for a while – Indonesia is a happening place for 3G mobile growth.  if you have not seen this already -please download the lastest mobile internet report from Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley  “decided to create The Mobile Internet Report largely in PowerPoint and publish it on the web, expecting that bits and pieces of it will be cut / pasted / redistributed and debated / dismissed / lauded. Our goal is to get our thoughts and data into the conversation about what may be the biggest technology trend ever, one that may help make us all more informed in ways that are unique to the web circa 2009, and beyond.

1) “The Mobile Internet Report Setup”– a 92-slide presentation that excerpts highlights of the key themes from the report (

2) “The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes” – a 659-slide presentation that drills down on thoughts covered in “The Mobile Internet Report” (Note that the presentation is 40MB and may take some time to download).

3) “The Mobile Internet Report” – a 424 page report which explores 8 major themes in depth and includes the two aforementioned slide presentations + related overview text (Note that the report is 50MB and may take some time to download. If you prefer to download individual themes of the report, please click here).

Our (Morgan Stanley) key takeaways are:

Material wealth creation / destruction should surpass earlier computing cycles. The mobile Internet cycle, the 5th cycle in 50 years, is just starting. Winners in each cycle often create more market capitalization than in the last. New winners emerge, some incumbents survive – or thrive – while many past winners falter.

The mobile Internet is ramping faster than desktop Internet did, and we believe more users may connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years.

Five IP-based products / services are growing / converging and providing the underpinnings for dramatic growth in mobile Internet usage – 3G adoption + social networking + video + VoIP + impressive mobile devices.

Apple + Facebook platforms serving to raise the bar for how users connect / communicate – their respective ramps in user and developer engagement may be unprecedented.

Decade-plus Internet usage / monetization ramps for mobile Internet in Japan plus desktop Internet in developed markets provide roadmaps for global ramp and monetization.

Massive mobile data growth is driving transitions for carriers and equipment providers.

Emerging markets have material potential for mobile Internet user growth. Low penetration of fixed-line telephone and already vibrant mobile value-added services mean that for many EM users and SMEs, the Internet will be mobile.”

Indonesia Software Market worth US 1.1B by 2013

Indonesia IT industry is growing slightly faster than the ASEAN average, and looking out a few years, our team is forecasting the Indonesia software market will grow to slightly over US 1 billion by 2013.  Some of the application software packages that are seeing increased take-up include CRM and call center software, market data services, ITIL enabling software / service desk components, and virtualization hypervisors.

Rexx.

Indonesia Mobile 3G – Bigger than a Rock star

Deployment of 3G services in the hugely attractive and  growing markets  shows no signs of  let-up.  Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam – each have no less than six mobile operators; Indonesia the most with eleven. What’s cool about Indonesia, is that 3G will be the technology to eventually deliver  broadband to the rural communities that are not likely to ever been able to receive cable or DSL services.