Seychelles and Qatar Poised to Join 100% Club

There was no change to the top ten most penetrated markets in the Middle East & Africa between June and September 2006, the United Arab Emirates continuing to lead from Bahrain, Israel and Kuwait at the top of the table. However, the year on year comparison is more interesting, although no market in the top ten moved by more than two places year on year.

Israel had the highest penetration in the region at the end of September 2005, with a 113% ratio of connections to heads of population, but had swapped positions with the third placed UAE come September 2006 as growth continued to slow. The United Arab Emirates figures give the most accurate indication of the penetration of that country for some time, using, as they do, the most recently updated population statistics which go some way to addressing the issue of the large non-national (expat) population mainly resident in Dubai. With penetration at 125.2% at the end of September 2006, however, there is clearly still a significant degree of uncounted population, or multiple ownership, or more likely both.

Other than Israel, Reunion was the only other market to slip two places, from fifth to seventh, overtaken by both the Seychelles and Qatar, which registered penetration rates fo 99% and 96% respectively at the end of Q3 2006. Either side of this battle, Kuwait remained in a steady fourth place, having broken the 100% barrier to reach 104% by the end of September, whilst South Africa remained unmoved in eighth, climbing 2.6pp of the way into the fourth quartile from 59.4% a year earlier.

Jordan was the only new entrant to the top ten, with the continent's second strongest annual increase in penetration of 25pp, taking the country from 45.1% to 70.6% in the space of the year. Making way for Jordan in ninth was Tunisia which was down to tenth at the end of the third quarter with 67% penetration, whilst Mauritius exited the top ten and dropped five places to fifteenth.

Only the top four MEA markets had exceed 100% penetration by the end of Q3 2006 although we expect that results for December 2006 will reveal the Seychelles and Qatar to have joined the club. A further four markets (for the moment including the Seychelles and Qatar) ended September with penetration rates in the fourth quartile, whilst a further eight occupied the third. Nine more markets had penetration rates between 25% and 50%, the highest placed being Morocco with 44.2% and the lowest Northern Iraq (the Kurdish controlled semi-autonomous region) just making the grade with 25.4%.

All of the rest of the countries in the MEA region still had penetration rates of less than 25% at the end of September 2006 - a total of 45 markets. Eritrea remains the least developed market on the continent, with Ethiopia second from bottom, and Rwanda third from bottom with a 3.1% rate of mobile ownership having been overtaken by eight other nations between September 2005 and September 2006.

This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World. To download a sample issue of the Briefing in PDF format, please click here. For more information including full subscription pricing, please visit The Mobile World"

Posted to the site on 25th January 2007