I did some preliminary research on the topic a few months ago. They are certainly highly regulated amd the offical stance can change from time to time.
Here is a recent summary by country, you will note satellite phones are banned in China and gps devices viewed ‘with suspicion’
in India satellite phones must operate on inmersat network and you need pre approval from dept of telecoms.
my view is that it’s not a retail free for all like other countries without significant govt engagement and Regulatry work, but on the other hand they are also very large enterprise/ govt markets and they may find the right approach in time. India seems far more likely than China in the current environment.
however given it’s harder all my assumptions on growth in Asia have been to ignore them completely. There are other Asian countries with similar issues such as Thailand and Vietnam.
A far more sensible initial Asian country to target initially just IMO with massive western traveller populations and significant mobile coverage issues would be potentially Indonesia who this year are getting very close to 200m mobile users so close to 10x the Australian market.
BCC Price at posting:
51.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
A personalised tool to help users track selected stocks. Delivering real-time notifications on price updates, announcements, and performance stats on each to help make informed investment decisions.
(20min delay)