MNP, 3G Rolling Out Bright Prospects for Turkey Mobile Market

A recent announcement by the Turkish government to allow the mobile operators to offer Mobile Number Portability (MNP) following the launch of 3G by the end of 2008 will drive the Turkish mobile market.

According to a recent report from RNCOS, mobile subscribers in Turkey reached approx 62 Million in 2007, growing at a CAGR of more than 19% from 2005. This equated to a mobile penetration rate of nearly 83% during the period. "Various factors, such as lack of fixed-line infrastructure, affordable prices and availability of prepaid services, which enable customers to spend as per their requirement, are the main stimuli for the mobile market", says an analyst at RNCOS.

The proposed allowance of MNP by the Turkish Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has made the future prospects of the Turkish mobile market very optimistic. This will foster true competition in the market which is the largely dominated by Turkcell (one of the three players besides Vodafone (Telsim) and Avea (a subsidiary of Turk Telecom)).

Further growth in TurkeyĆ's mobile market is likely to be stated by the speed with which the country will see the commercial rollout of 3G mobile services, which is not expected to hit ground before 2009. The RNCOS research anticipates that some 4% to 5% of all mobile subscribers in Turkey will have access to 3G services by 2012.

Posted to the site on 22nd December 2008