French Mobile Phone Customer Base Grew 0.7% In 1Q
PARIS -(Dow Jones)- Growth in the French mobile phone customer base slowed to 0.7% in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the previous quarter, French telecommunications regulator Arcep said Wednesday.
The first-quarter increase was slower than rises of 3.8% in the fourth quarter and of 1.5% in the third quarter of 2006.
There were 52.05 million mobile phone users in France at the end of March, Arcep said.
The penetration rate in the first quarter was 82.4%, up from 81.8% in the previous three months.
The number of prepaid customers contracted by 0.5% in the first quarter to 18.03 million after a 4.7% rise in the fourth quarter of 2006. The drop in prepaid was more than offset by a 1.3% first-quarter increase in postpaid customers to 34.02 million.
France's three mobile telecoms operators are SFR, a unit of Vivendi, France Telecom's Orange subsidiary, and Bouygues's Bouygues Telecom division.
-By Jethro Mullen, Dow Jones Newswires; +33140171740, jethro.mullen@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires "
Posted to the site on 10th May 2007
