In terms of the number of mobile connections the Czech Republic was well over 100% penetrated at the start of 2006, but continued upwards during the year, to end at 117%, an increase of 8.7pp in the twelve months. After a par performance in Q1, when penetration increased by 1.9pp, the market appeared to have become almost becalmed in Q2, when net additions equated to just 0.6% of the population, or just under 165k people.
This result gave no indication of what would happen next, as the third quarter saw a 1.1pp increase and the fourth, 4.2pp, or nearly half the year's total.
This strong increase can be attributed in large part to T-Mobile, which added 37,000 more customers in the final quarter - 226k - than it did in the first three quarters put together. T-Mobile end 2006 with more than 5m customers, a lead of more than 0.5m over second placed Telefonica-O2 and more than twice the base of third placed Vodafone. This last, however, had the consolation that it grew rather faster than its larger rivals, increasing the size of its base by 12.6%, against 9.0% at T-Mobile and just 4.6% at Telefonica. In fact, it outpaced Telefonica-O2 in absolute terms, adding 271k customers, compared with the Spanish company's total of 199k.
The chart below shows the proportionate growth rates of the three operators over the last eight quarters. The uniformity seen in the fourth quarter of both years is interesting, as is the fact that that the company that has diverged most from the trends is Telefonica, the company one might have expected to be the most consistent. Until 1996, the company that Telefonica acquired (Eurotel Praha, as was) was the monopoly operator and, up until June 2005, the market leader.
The Czech Republic is one of the few European markets where CDMA technology has been deployed, Eurotel Praha having launched a 1x EV-DO network in September 2004. It is dedicated to data, and has hardly set the market alight - after nine quarters, it accounts for less than one percent of the total market. Looked at in another way, this means that only one new customer in 25 has selected CDMA since its inception, although admittedly the ratio for those choosing data-only products would be rather more favourable to the US standard.
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World. To download a sample issue of the Briefing in PDF format, please click here. For more information including full subscription pricing, please visit The Mobile World"
Posted to the site on 21st March 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/22693.php