Lithuania Expected to Pass 150% Market Penetration This Year

The Lithuanian GSM network operator, Bite has put out a statement commenting on the local market conditions and made the rather surprising conclusion that mobile penetration at the end of 2006 will reach 155 percent. According to data from TheMobileWorld, penetration at the end of Q3, 2005 - penetration in the country stood at 124%, with a total of 4.45 million subscribers.

"Next year will continue not only active competition but market rearrangement as well. However, the scale of these changes will become smaller. The market shares of all operators will level out even further and the main competitive criteria will often be not price but the range and quality of the services offered for the customers", - CEO of BITE Lietuva Jesper Theill Eriksen said.

Even though the growth of Tele2 was lower than prognosed at the beginning of 2005, the overall trends of the equaling out of the market shares became real. The market share of "Omnitel" during the first three quarters of 2005 dropped by almost 1.5 percentage points and at the end of this year will reach around 37 percent. The market shares of all operators will stay in the frame of 30-40 percent during this year.

According to J.T. Eriksen, this year will further established the trend that mobile service price is not the decisive factor for choosing an operator. The pricing will be further regulated by the competition leaving no essential differences between the operators' service prices. In addition to that, number portability service that should be fully implemented at the beginning of this year, will become additional competition factor. It is forecasted that in 2006 this possibility will be used by up to 5 percent of the mobile users of the country.

The business market share of BITE in 2004-2005 was growing the fastest. "We finished the year fulfilling our growth ambitions in large and medium enterprise segment. In 2006 we will focus on serving the current customers and on growth in small business segment", - COO Business of BITE Lietuva Darius Montvila said. It is estimated that at the end of 2006 the market share of business customers on BITE network will exceed 42 percent and Omnitel's will drop to 48.5 percent while Tele2 market share will grow a little.

TheMobileWorld database reports that at the end of Q3, 2005 - Bite had 32% of the market. Tele2 trailed with just over 30% of the market and Omnitel is the market leader with just under 38% of the market."

Posted to the site on 9th January 2006