Some Wireless Subscriber Stats

A couple of subscriber stats that hit my inbox today…
The updated version of India’s Wireless Market: Model for the Next Phase of Global Wireless Expansion states that India is adding five million subscribers per month and will become the world’s second largest mobile phone market by 2008 (I assume after China). They spend an average of less than $10 per month on voice, so operators have an incentive to provide affordable text, music and video services.
Africa is also growing at a speedy rate…Informa Telecoms & Media states that the African subscriber base grew by 66% in 2005, and will grow by 39% in 2006 to reach a total of 186 million subscribers. That’s out of a total African population of 900 million. Most of the growth is in Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria and Egypt. There’s a graph here that shows the growth for the five African regions.
Meanwhile, Telephia reports that Europeans are upgrading their handsets every two years on average. In contrast, the plan I just got here in Mexico allows me to upgrade my handset for free in six months, which is astounding.

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