www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Senegal has reportedly added 299,936 mobile phone subscribers in Q2′09 taking the total base to 6.28 million, up 5%. The mobile penetration in the country reached 51.63%, reports ARTP, the telecoms regulator. This is the lowest quarterly growth in a year, contrasting with 11.03% growth in Q1′09, 7.57% in the Q4′08, 6.12% in the Q3′08 and 14.15% in the Q2′08. At the end fo Q2′09, Sonatel Mobile (Orange Senegal) had 4.04 million subscribers (64.3%), followed by Millicom subsidiary Sentel with 2.11 million (33.6%) and Sudatel affiliate Expresso with 133,194 (2.1%). Of the total mobile subscriber base at June’09 end, 6.24 million accounted for prepaid mobile base while 42,313 were postpaid. The prepaid subscriber base grew by 5%, or 297,358 users in Q2, whereas postpaid subscribers rose by 6.49%, or
2,578 users.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: NEC, Hitachi and Casio, the Japanese handset manufacturers are reportedly in talks to for a merger of their mobile phone operators in order top create nation’s second largest handset firm after Sharp.
According to the media reports, the three firms have confirmed the that they are in talks over merging their handset divisions by April 2010 in which NEC will hold the major ownership stake. The merger will hold nearly 20% of the Japanese handset market.
The merger talks have come when the Japanese market is facing saturation, bringing down the profitability of mobile handset manufacturer. Several companies, including Sharp, have sought to boost growth by charging into emerging markets like China.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Samsung Electronics, world’s second largest mobile handset manufacturer, has reported to have attained the number one position in the Chinese 3G handset market. The Korean firm topped China’s TD-SCDMA market, holding a 23.6% in first seven months of 2009, followed by DOPOD with a 19.4% share, ZTE with a 16% share, COOLPAD with a 15.8% share.
LG Electronics stood at fifth position with an 11.6% share in the TD-SCDMA market.
Samsung also led the CDMA-2000 handset market for the time frame of May’09- JUly’09 with a market share of 44.1%, followed by LG with a 30.5% share. While, Nokia, the world’s No. 1 handset maker, ranked fourth with a 4.7% percent share in the market.
The WCDMA market was held by Sony Ericsson with a 62.7% share from May to July. Nokia placed second with a 16.3% share, followed by Motorola with 9.5% and Samsung with 7.6%.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Banglalink, the Bangladeshi mobile operator, owned by Orascom Telecom, has posted a rise in revenues of 29% year-on-year in H1′09 to DT11.83 billion (USD175 million), as its subscriber base grew by 17% to 11.04 million at the end of June, up from 9.45 million at mid-2008. The operator’s market share also increased to 23.7% at mid-2009. The Bangladeshi operator’s ARPU also hiked by 18% to BDT182 by the end of June, compared to BDT154 a year earlier.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Pakistan’s mobile market according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has reported a penetration level of 58.5% at the end of July. The mobile segment, in July added 1 million mobile suscribers taking the total mobile subscriber base to 95.55 million.
Of the total base, Mobilink led the market with 29.5 million (31%) subscribers while Telenor stood second with 21.3 million (22%) followed by Ufone with 21% market share.
The highest monthly additions were achieved by Mobilink with 414,000 new subscribers followed by Telenor and Warid with 406,000 and 255,000 new subscribers respectively.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Zain Zambia has reportedly posted a growth of 20% in H1′09 despite a drop in its market share from 75% to 71% during H1′08. According to unaudited interim results for H1, Zain Zambia stated that its revenue grew to K653,199 million compared with K543,611 million gained during H1′08.
On the other hand, Zain Zambia Plc’s gross profit rose to K550,838 million during H1′09 from K471,831 million H1′08. “Despite this, we have still been able to grow our revenues by 20 per cent and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) by 14 per cent compared to the same period in 2008,” said managing director David Holliday. “In order to improve operational efficiency, we re-structured our organization and streamlined internal processes. Recent network disruptions, now resolved, unfortunately marred what would have been an unbroken period of technological excellence and customer experience.”
The operator posted a subscriber base of 2.8 million at June’09-end, up 23% since last year.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Vodafone Qatar, the newly launched mobile operator in the country, reportedly anticipates to capture nearly 60% of the Qatari mobile market in next 10 years, a senior company official has said.
“We hope that by 2019 Vodafone Qatar will have acquired 40-60 percent market share as we will be offering quality product and a great distribution system nationwide,” director, Consumer Business Unit, Vodafone Qatar, Daniel Horan reportedly said.
He further revealed that the operator is in partnership with 10 leading companies to open around 100 more distribution outlets by next week.
“Next week, we will have 100 more sales outlets in addition to the 26 already existing to take the number of distribution outlets to 126 in the country,” Horan said.
The operator further aims to raise the number of sales outlet to 1500 by year-end. Horan further unveiled that the operator intends to introduce prepaid services by next month, a part of its market strategy.
“Very soon Vodafone Qatar will be announcing a major initiative for customer services and this will set new industry benchmarks in this segment,” Horan added.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: mCel, the Mozambique based mobile operator, has reported net profit of MZN548 million (USD20.76 million) for 2008, up 58% year-on-year from MZN348 million in 2007. mCel CEO Gomes Zita said: ‘With the exception of the 2004 financial year, when net profits of MZN660 million were posted due to currency exchange gains, 2008 was our most successful term in the last five years.’
The revenues for the telco grew from MZN5.83 billion in 2007 to MZN7.09 billion in 2008. The operator’s mobile subscriber base rose by 36% to 3.1 million compared to just over 2.3 million at the end of 2007. The company estimates that its market share at the end of 2008 stood at 69%, up 3% year-on-year.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: GSM telecoms operator of India namely, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and BSNL have together gained 9.5 million subscribers in July, taking their total subscriber base to 325.7 million. The leading mobile operator, Airtel, has gained 2.8 million subscribers during the period, taking its total subscriber base to 105.1 million, COAI said. Airtel continues to be the market leader with a market share of 32.29%. Vodafone added 2.2 million subscribers in July, holds a market share of 24.16%. The firm ended July with a total base of 78.6 million.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The French mobile operators have added 678,600 new subscribers in Q2′09 to end June with 58.91 million subscribers, reports the French telecom regulator Arcep. While the overall mobile market grew by 1.2% in Q2, the postpaid subscriber base grew by 1.8% to 40.51 million and prepaid subscribers fell by 0.3% to 18.4 million. MVNOs, at the end of June, had a 5.3% market share by subscribers, up from 5.17% at the end of March and 4.67% at the end of June 2008. During the Q2, SMS traffic grew by 7.2% to 14.66 billion messages, or 85.9 per month per active subscriber, compared to 13.68 billion or 80.6 monthly messages per customer in Q1.