Opensignal, the independent global standard for measuring real world mobile network experience, has released its latest ‘Malaysian Mobile Network Experience’ report, analysing mobile network experience for customers of the main operators in the country: Celcom, Digi, Maxis, U Mobile, Unifi and Yes. The analysis was made at a national level, as well as across 15 Malaysian territories, helping Malaysian mobile users to understand which mobile network may be best for them based on how they use their phones and where they live in the country.
For this report Opensignal collected and analysed over 1.1 billion measurements taken from 594,812 devices using the Opensignal App in Malaysia during a three-month period (June 2020 to August 2020). This is Opensignal’s first countrywide report on Malaysia’s mobile networks since the COVID-19 pandemic became a major issue.
The full report can be viewed at: https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2020/09/malaysia/mobile-network-experience
Key national findings of Opensignal’s report include:
- Maxis retained the lion’s share of national awards, with three. Users on their network enjoyed the best ‘Download Speed Experience’, ‘Games Experience’ and ‘Video Experience’.
- Celcom retained the two awards that they held in the previous report, with users on their network enjoying both the best 4G Availability (which measures the percentage of time they are connected to their network using 4G) and 4G Coverage (which measures the ability of users to connect to 4G in different geographic regions).
- For the first time, Malaysian users experienced average 4G Availability higher than 80% across all national network operators. Celcom won this category with 88.1% availability, a lead of 2.4 percentage points over second-placed Maxis.
- U Mobile, who were recently awarded ‘Global Rising Star’ status by Opensignal in their 2020 Global Awards (due to their percentage improvement across a variety of metrics over the past year), succeeded in winning two Malaysia specific awards this time. In the latest report U Mobile users enjoy the best ‘Upload Speed Experience’ and they shared the best ‘Voice App Experience’ with users on the Unifi network.
- The ‘Voice App Experience’, which measures the quality of experience for users of voice for over-the-top (OTT) voice services using apps like WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger, was jointly won by Unifi and U Mobile who each scored just above 74 points, placing them both in Opensignal’s ‘Acceptable’ category. The other three operators were not far behind, with less than 2.3 points (out of 100) separating all five operators, however DiGi, Maxis and Celcom still ranked in the ‘Poor’ category for ‘Voice App Experience’.
- Maxis won the ‘Video Experience’ award with a score of 60 points, but conceded ground to the other operators. In our last report, Maxis had a lead of six points on second-placed Celcom and 10 points on third-placed DiGi, but now less than two points separate the three operators. Further down, U Mobile gained considerable ground and moved from fifth place to fourth, having improved by 7.2 points, but U Mobile is still more than eight points behind third-placed Celcom.
- Maxis retained the ‘Download Speed Experience’ award with a score of 14.5 Mbps, and a significant lead of close to 4 Mbps over second-placed DiGi, which scored 10.6 Mbps. While Malaysia was under movement restriction orders for most of the current data collection period, the average download and upload speeds observed by users has proven to be resilient, with average download speeds above 10 Mbps across four out of five operators.
Sample national charts (these can be downloaded directly from the Report)
The Opensignal Mobile Network Experience Report for Malaysia also took a deep dive into the regional performance of Malaysia’s mobile operators across 15 Malaysian territories.
These charts can serve as a guide for Malaysian consumers interested in knowing which networks perform particularly well (or poorly) in their home regions. The data also provides a better understanding of the differences in service enjoyed by users in urban and rural regions.
Sample regional charts:
Video Experience – Penang vs Kuala Lumpur
Games Experience – Putrajaya vs Sabah
Download Experience – Melaka vs Terengganu
There are many more graphs which provide a wealth of comparative data in the full report:
https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2020/09/malaysia/mobile-network-experience
1 October 2020
