Sprint Finish Leaves Rivals Standing

Sprint PCS, one of six new additions to World Cellular Investors, was way ahead of its nearest US and international rivals during Q1 2003, posting a 17% increase in subscriber growth during the quarter, reports Liz Hall, Senior Research Analyst at EMC. Sprint's nearest US-competitor Bell South only managed to muster a 3.75% increase in its domestic subscriber base and a 3.40% rise in its worldwide proportionate subscriber base during the same quarter. These statistics were taken from the new edition of EMC's World Cellular Investors Datasheet.

China Unicom, the second highest climber, posted an 8.8% growth in subscribers, while Telekom Malaysia's 31.25% stake in Malaysia's largest cellular operator, Celcom, contributed to an 8.14% increase in Telekom's subscriber base, from 3.4 million to 3.68 million subscribers.

With 144 million subscribers at the end of March 2003, the world's biggest cellular operator, China Mobile, managed to maintain a gap of 29 million subscribers over Vodafone's 114 million proportionate subscribers.

The biggest faller among the 30 investors now covered in World Cellular Investors, was BT Group. The company sold off more than 2.4 million subscribers during Q1 2003 through the disposal of its stake in the French operator SFR and 21% holding in Hong Kong operator Smartone. The UK incumbent has only two foreign investments remaining in the mobile cellular market, LG Telecom in Korea and Singapore's StarHub."

Posted to the site on 12th June 2003