Kazakhstan Telecoms Market Tops $3 Billion in 2008

The Kazakhstan telecoms market was worth KZT 379 billion (US$3.2 billion) in 2008 - representing 3% of the country's GDP, reports the official news agency, Kazinform. The agency was citing the Chairman of the Agency for Information and Communications, Kuanyshbek Yessekeyev.

Mr. Yessekeyev emphasized high rates of growth of cellular operators, tough competition on the market and growth of their incomes over the last year. According to the Agency' data, the number of mobile phone subscribers had topped 15 million people, and teledensity had reached 98 percent.

"The data was received on the basis of the sold SIM-cards", he clarified.

The figures accord closely with statistics from the Mobile World consultancy, which estimated the subscriber base to be around 14.3 million at the end of last September. With a local survey finding that over a third of respondents don't trust government statistics, this is an important measure of confidence in the Agency numbers.

Number of people using internet through mobile phones grows. "About 1.5 million users of Kar-TEL and K-Cell operators have connected internet through the cellphones this month", he said.

On the web: Mobile World - Kazinform

Posted to the site on 13th January 2009