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North American Rolling Annual Growth Rate Drops to Lowest Rate Ever
The North America region ended the third quarter with a total of 288.2m customers, up from 283.5m at the end of Q2 and 268.4m one year earlier. The quarter saw a faster rate of growth than was achieved in either Q1 or Q2, when 4.2m and 3.7m connections were made (respectively) but the 4.66m new connections only amounts to a 1.64% growth rate. Year on year, the total number of new connections amounted to 19.71m, or rather less than India has added in September and October alone. The regionÃ's annual growth rate was just 7.3%, the slowest ever.
The US market dominates the region, with 266.9m of the total customer base. It also accounts for much the largest part of this quarters adds, having connected 4.2m new customers in the quarter. This takes penetration to 87.6%, still well below the average in other developed world markets. The annual growth rate in the US is below the regional average, at 1.57% in the quarter and 7.2% for the year. Again, this is the slowest annual rate ever. The recent unemployment figures are bound to have an adverse effect upon the Q4 numbers - with some 603,000 people being "separated from their jobs" in November alone, there could be a material impact. In the first instance, this will likely be seen in the ARPU numbers, with the connection figures following in subsequent quarters, as long term contracts run out.
The other major part of the region is Canada. Penetration here is even lower than in the States, at 63%. The total Canadian base grew by 532k in the quarter, taking the total to 21.25m. The annual growth number was 1.7m, so proportionately, Canada marginally outpaced the USA, with growth rates of 2.6% and 8.7% respectively. The market is likely to be spurred into faster growth soon however, when the new AWS licensees start operating and we anticipate that they will take a significant share of the market from the countryÃ's (arguably complacent) incumbents.
Finally, the markets in Greenland and St Pierre et Miquelon both made small advances, adding a few hundred customers between them to take their totals to 55k and 2,950, respectively. This gives Greenland a penetration rate of 98%, and St. Pierre et Miquelon 42% respectively.
Posted to the site on 11th December 2008
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World.
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