IHS Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Fourth-quarter 2010 data from regulators and national statistics offices have begun to flow through. |
Implications | Vietnam and Bangladesh have shown the fastest growth of the six countries assessed. |
Outlook | That there were only limited market-share changes in these markets reflects operators' increasing focus on margins and revenues over market share. |
Asia-Pacific
Bangladesh
- BTRC reports that mobile subscribers grew by 30.9% year-on-year (y/y) to 68.65 million.
- The Orascom-owned Bangalink topped the growth rates, but Telenor-owned Green Phone remains dominant with a 43.7% market share.
Operator | Total Mobile Subs. (Mil.) | Market Share (%) | |||
2009 | 2010 | Growth (%) | 2009 | 2010 | |
Grameen Phone | 23.3 | 30.0 | 28.8 | 44.4 | 43.7 |
Axiata | 9.3 | 12.4 | 33.1 | 17.7 | 18.0 |
Bangalink | 13.9 | 19.3 | 39.3 | 26.5 | 28.2 |
Citycell | 2.0 | 1.8 | -7.1 | 3.7 | 2.6 |
Teletalk | 1.1 | 1.2 | 13.2 | 2.0 | 1.8 |
Airtel (formerly Warid Telecom) | 3.0 | 4.0 | 32.3 | 5.7 | 5.8 |
Total | 52.43 | 68.64 | 30.9 | ||
Source: BTRC and IHS Global Insight | |||||
Japan
- Japan’s TCA reports that mobile subscribers rose by 5.8% y/y to 117.06 million.
- E-Mobile (37.8%) and Softbank (12.6%) led growth, but DoCoMo and KDDI still collectively control over three-quarters of the market.
Operator | Total Mobile Subs. (Mil.) | Market Share (%) | |||
2009 | 2010 | Growth (%) | 2009 | 2010 | |
NTT DoCoMo | 55,4 | 57.2 | 3.2 | 50.1 | 48.9 |
KDDI | 31.4 | 32.5 | 3.6 | 28.4 | 27.8 |
Softbank | 21.7 | 24.4 | 12.6 | 19.6 | 20.8 |
E-Mobile | 2.1 | 2.9 | 37.8 | 1.9 | 2.5 |
Total | 110.6 | 117.1 | 5.8 | ||
Source: TCA and IHS Global Insight | |||||
Vietnam
- National statistics office GSO notes that mobile subscribers increased by 39.8% y/y to 153.70 million.
- This was equivalent to a mobile penetration of 172.6%; both figures are inflated by multiple SIM ownership.
Europe
Hungary
- Hungary’s mobile market saw little growth (1.1%) in 2010 to 11.05 million, according to industry regulator NHH.
- T-Mobile retained market leadership with 43.36% of subscriptions, followed by Telenor (34.26%) and Vodafone (22.28%). This represented little change from the fourth quarter of 2009 when T-Mobile controlled 43.41%, Telenor had 34.52%, and Vodafone had 22.07%.
- NHH also notes that the number of mobile internet subscriptions in Hungary rose from 933,000 in December 2009 to 1.3 million in December 2010.
- T-Mobile's share of “subscriptions with data transfer” (subscriptions generating at least one byte of internet traffic over the last three months) stood at 48.61%. However, Telenor customers on average used their mobile internet connections more than those of their competitors. In December, Telenor customers generated an average of 1.73 gigabytes of data traffic, higher than both Vodafone (1.33 gigabytes) and T-Mobile (1.21 gigabytes).
Poland
- Poland’s national statistics office put total mobile subscribers at 47.1532 million at the end of 2010, up 4.81% from 44.9891 million.
Latin America and Caribbean
Brazil
- The year 2010 was another one of strong mobile growth for Brazil, in which subscribers rose by 16.7% to 202.94 million.
- TIM was the main gainer in terms of market share, which leaves it only marginally short of Claro. Oi lost market share of 1.3 percentage points over the last year.
- By the end of the year, 3G customers accounted for 10.2% of total mobile customers: W-CDMA handset-based subscribers grew 257.3% to 14.6 million, while data-card subscribers grew by 31.5% to 6.0 million.
Market Share (%) | ||
Operator | 2009 | 2010 |
Vivo | 29.5 | 29.7 |
Claro | 25.5 | 25.4 |
TIM | 23.6 | 25.1 |
Oi | 20.7 | 19.4 |
CTBC | 0.3 | 0.3 |
Prefeitura De Londrina/Copel | 0.1 | 0.0 |
Unicel Do Brasil Telec. LTDA | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Total | 100.0 | 100.0 |
Source: Anatel and IHS Global Insight | ||
Outlook and Implications
- Vietnam and Bangladesh Lead Pack: Based on the most recent releases by national regulators, Bangladesh and Vietnam lead the pack in terms of mobile subscriber growth. Bangladesh rebounded from 17.5% growth in 2009 to 30.9% in 2010, while Vietnam’s growth slowed from 46.8% in 2009. Growth in Poland and Hungary has been relatively modest.
- Market Share Changes Relatively Limited: The only significant gains in terms of market share were seen by Bangalink (Bangladesh), E-Mobile (Japan), and TIM (Brazil). This primarily reflects the operators’ focus on supporting margins and revenues over building up market share. As the case in Hungary shows, there is the potential for smaller operators to take relative leadership in the mobile data space.