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Mobile penetration booms in W. Europe in 2000
By Anne Young, Total Telecom
04 January 2001
Mobile phones have become the must-have gadgets in Europe, as regulators and operators in signaled Thursday that subscriber and penetration figures had skyrocketed last year.
Consumer demand appears to have been undiminished by reports about potential health threats from handsets, as well as by the poor publicity generated by recent auctions for third-generation licenses, the unpopularity of WAP, and forecasted delays in next-generation services.
Indeed, forecasts from London-based consultancy Ovum suggest that total mobile connections in western Europe will reach more than 401 million by the end of 2005, up from almost 242 million at the beginning of 2001.
French penetration
On Thursday French regulator ART announced that by end December 2000 the number of mobile subscribers in the country had risen 44%, or 9 million, year-on-year to 29,681,300 - representing a penetration rate of 49.4% of the population.
In the fourth quarter alone, subscriber growth was 13.3%.
France Telecom continued to dominate the mobile market with a 48.2% market share, followed by Cegetel/SFR with 34.2% and Bouygues Telecom with a 17.6% share.
The number of subscribers per company was 14,310,800 for France Telecom, 10,159,800 for Cegetel and 5,210,700 for Bouygues.
German growth
An overview of mobile industry figures published by German regulator RegTP also indicates strong national growth. By the end of October 2000, the total number of subscribers in Germany was 43,140,000. Based on a total population of an estimated 83 million, this represents a penetration rate of 52.1%. And compared with the number of subscribers at the end of 1999, around 23,470,000, the growth rate in the first 10 months of last year was a massive 83.8%.
By the end of October, the D2 network operated by Mannesmann Mobilfunk had the largest number of subscribers, at 17,400,000, slightly ahead of Deutsche Telekom's D1 network, which had 17,000,000 subscribers. E-Plus boasted 5,950,000 subscribers on its E1 network, and Viag Interkom had 2,750,000 on its E2 network.
Subscribers on the analog network, C-Netz, operated by Deutsche Telekom, continued to decline, falling to just 40,000 by end October.
U.K. upswing
The United Kingdom also saw a rise in mobile-phone popularity last year, with figures boosted by Christmas sales. Initial estimates by researchers say that more than two thirds of the U.K. population now own a phone, with sales reaching around 4.7 million over Christmas, and 5 million in the whole of the last quarter.
According to findings published Thursday by U.K.-based NOP Research, one in 10 U.K. adults said they would buy a mobile phone as a Christmas present.
Colin Strong, director of NOP Business, said: "Amid the continuing debate over the possible health risks, the British love affair with the mobile phone continues apace. The young in particular see the mobile phone as the 'must-have' and we can expect to see further growth in this area."
In mid-2000, around 28 million people owned a mobile phone, representing just less than half of the U.K. population.
The four U.K. mobile operators are shortly to publish their sales and subscriber figures for last year. Indeed, Orange, the third-largest operator that is now threatening to snatch BT Cellnet's number two position behind Vodafone, announced record figures Thursday. The company said it added 1.56 million net new U.K. customers in the fourth quarter, taking its total number to 9.83 million. Orange, which is now a subsidiary of France Telecom, also said it gained 1.73 million new users in France. |
