Europe's Top Ten Networks - All Now over 20m Customers

TIM in Italy remains Europe's largest operator, but the strong performance by T-Mobile has given it second place, ahead of Turkcell once more. The gap between the two leaders is now down to 380k, compared with 840k at the end of last quarter and with German penetration at 112% and Italian at 146%, the probability is that T-Mobile will take the lead in the current quarter. That conclusion assumes Turkcell will continue to struggle for growth in a market where its competitors, Vodafone and Avea, are taking an increasing share of all new connections.

Vodafone Germany is in fourth place, as it has been for several quarters, while its sister company in Italy continues in fifth. The gap between the two widened significantly in the last quarter however, with Germany extending its lead from 3.4m to 4.3m.

Vodafone is the most heavily represented company on this list, with three other subsidiaries in the top 20. These are in the UK, Turkey and Spain and they take 12th, 14th and 15th places respectively, while the company's French associate SFR is in 11th place and its Polish joint venture Polkomtel is in 20th. No other major operator comes close to rivalling this footprint. France Telecom comes closest, if "close" is the right word, with Orange France in sixth, Orange UK in 16th and Orange Poland (PTK) in 19th. T-Mobile and Telefonica are the only other multinational operators with more than a single entry, the first having Germany (second) and the UK (13th) while Telefonica has Spain (eighth) and the UK (ninth). Both are close to a third entry with T-Mobile's Polish company (PTC) being in 21st place and O2 Germany in 22nd.

The second chart in this section shows the fastest growing networks in Europe over the last quarter.

All of the companies on the list added a minimum of 300k new customers in the quarter, with the top 13 adding more than 0.5m and the top three more than one million. This is not something one would readily associate with a mature market, let alone one which is "saturated" as some commentators have suggested. Looking at this in another light, it is interesting that 15 of the largest 20 operators added more than one million new customers over the last year, while the top six all added three million or more. In aggregate, the top 20 added just under 40m new subscribers in 2007, or 500k each per quarter.

Posted to the site on 16th April 2008

 

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