|
North America Q3 - GSM Customer Numbers Top 100m
GSM customer numbers in North America topped 100m in early September to reach 100.52m by the end of the third quarter, 1.97m up over the three months. Connections to networks operating using the global standard have more than doubled in number over the last three years, having stood at just under 50m at the end of Q3 2004. Over that time-frame GSM has been without doubt the fastest growing technology in the North American market; however, over the last year it has in fact been the slowest growing. In the year to 30th September, GSM customer numbers rose by 9.7%, which is the lowest ever recorded growth rate for the technology, and the first time the annual figure has dropped below 10%.
Before CDMA stalwarts get too hot under the collar, however, we should point out that this is of course because of the huge increase in W-CDMA 3G customers in the US market. Taking the GSM and W-CDMA bases together, the increase in customers amounted to 16.8% in the year to 30th September 2007 - well above the regional average growth rate of 10.2% and 1.2pp in excess of the percentage increase in the number of CDMA customers in North America over the 12 month period.
The growth rate in the CDMA customer base improved from 14.9% for the 12 months ending 30th June to 15.6% for the 12 months ending 30th September, taking the total base to 136.6m at the end of Q3 2007. CDMA customers make up the 51.0% majority of customers in North America, a proportion that has risen from 48.6% over the last year after the above average growth in subscriber numbers. However, GSM/W-CDMA networks did almost as well, despite starting with a customer base only just over three quarters the size, accounting for 40.2% of the North American market by customers at the end of Q3 2007, 2.3pp on the year before.
The above average growth in both the CDMA and GSM families is of course explained by the fact that North America has not one but two legacy technologies in decline. In the year to 30th September there was a 60% reduction in AMPS/TDMA numbers to under 4m and also a 14.6% decrease in iDEN numbers to under 20m.
If we were to include SprintNextel's "dual technology" handsets in the United States (which we currently count as CDMA, this being the other technology) the iDEN figures would look a little more healthy, but the trend is undeniable. Strictly speaking there is also a third atrophying technology in the North American region in the form of the NMT standard network still operating in Greenland, although this played host to only 850 or so customers at the end of Q3 2007.
The fastest growing technology in the region in the year to September was W-CDMA, despite having only two active supporters in the form of AT&T Mobility and Rogers Wireless. Given that the base a year ago amounted to just 0.44m, however, this feat is hardly surprising.
AT&T accounts for the vast majority of the growth and has done a tremendous job this year, increasing the size of the base in the first nine months of the year almost ten-fold. Customer numbers were up by almost 2m in Q3 2007 to almost 7m, rising to over 7m with the inclusion of Rogers. The total number of additions and conversions to the global 3G standard at AT&T exceeded the number of its own net additions by almost a third in the first nine months of 2007, with over 6.2m new W-CDMA connections compared with a net increase of just 4.7m in the base as a whole. The US market leader still has some way to go before it can match the 3G penetration of nearest rival Verizon, but is not far off out-doing third-placed Sprint, at least if a stricter definition is applied and only EV-DO enabled connections are counted.
Overall, CDMA2000 1x customers still outnumber W-CDMA customers by more than 13 to 1, although this ratio is down from 216 to 1 at the end of Q3 2006. In terms of EV-DO customers, the ratio has gone from 42 to just 5.6 over the same time period, despite a doubling of the base to over 39m in the year.
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
Article published on
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |