OTT as a sector disruptor — The smartphone revolution has brought about a newrisk for telcos: OTT, a web-based, potentially far cheaper way of communicating thatbypasses traditional voice and SMS services. Within Asia, we believe telco revenues inMalaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines could be increasingly cannibalized by OTT.Conservatively assuming no data revenue uplift, FY15 earnings could be eroded by 5-12%. Markets most insulated to OTT dynamics are Japan, Korea, India and Thailand. 　　What is OTT? — Over the Top (OTT) services such as Line, WeChat, Viber andWhatsApp allow access to telco-related services (voice/text messaging) throughindependent IP-based platforms. As these service providers piggyback on telconetworks without necessarily paying for the infrastructure, they are able to price farmore aggressively for VOIP and text messaging, often providing them free bygenerating revenues through cross-selling. Traditional voice and SMS usage/revenuesfor telcos are thus under threat as customers migrate to OTT services. 　　Low barriers to entry — The main bottleneck to OTT adoption lies with handsets as asmartphone is needed to access most of the OTT services. Otherwise, barriers arevery low, resulting in negligible costs for OTT application adoption. Rising handsetsales over the next 2 years, driven by low-cost smartphones, almost certainly will spurever-greater rates of defection to OTT. 　　What to watch for — OTT cannibalization to date has been focused on markets with(1) expensive voice/SMS pricing (2) significant SMS contributions (3) pre-paid modelorientation (4) incorrect data pricing, which allows for usage arbitrage (5) high levels offixed broadband/WiFi penetration. Telcos have recognized the risk from usagemigration to OTT and have tried to stem the impact by bundling together voice / SMS/data plans to protect overall ARPU. However, WiFi offloading remains a risk andaggressive bundling in emerging markets is a barrier to data plan adoption. 　　Telcos most exposed to OTT revenue erosion — Within Asia, the Malaysian,Indonesian and Philippines telcos look most vulnerable to the effects of OTT take-up.Sell- or Neutral-rated names to watch include Maxis, PT Telkom, XL Axiata and PLDT 　　Regional top picks — Within the region, we select AIS, DTAC, SKT, China Unicomand Taiwan Mobile as our top picks. Our stance is more defensive owing to currencyvolatility in some of the ASEAN markets and India, which reduces the attractiveness ofa number of the growth names.