Latin America Leads Global Market Growth Rates
BELLEVUE, Wash., June 13 /PRNewswire/ -- 3G Americas and Informa
Telecoms & Media announced today that the milestone of two billion
subscribers worldwide will be achieved by the end of June for the GSM
family of technologies-GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS and HSDPA. A wireless customer in
one of more than 200 countries served by GSM will activate their wireless
device and become an immediate communications industry 'milestone' -- the
world's two billionth GSM customer. Globally, there are 2.29 billion
cellular users encompassing all technologies, placing GSM as the dominant
market leader.
Latin America and the Caribbean led the world market percentage growth
rate for GSM, adding more than 74 million new customers in the one year
period from March 2005 to March 2006 -- nearly doubling their subscriber
base with a growth rate of 97%. The Middle East followed by Africa are the
world regions with the next largest growth rates, respectively. However,
China continues to be the largest single market of GSM customers, with
662.6 million as of March 2006.
"It took approximately twelve years to reach the first one billion GSM
subscriptions, back in 2004," stated Devine Kofiloto, Principal Analyst,
Informa Telecoms & Media, "but only two and a half years to hit the next
billion GSM/UMTS subscriptions."
According to projections from Informa's World Cellular Information
Service, the three billion customer milestone for GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS will
occur in 2010, with an expected 700 million of these subscribers using UMTS
services. As the wireless phone becomes more than just a phone in many
parts of the world, uses for these evolved devices will continue to expand,
with the emergence of more machine-to-machine (M2M) applications that will
also substantially increase the number of subscribers.
In the Western Hemisphere, where the customer base for GSM begins to
approach a quarter of a billion customers, a principal reason for the
technology's tremendous growth is the large number of CDMA and TDMA
operators choosing to migrate their networks to the GSM family of
technologies. Heavily contributing to this customer migration are operators
America Movil and Telefonica Moviles launching GSM networks in all their
existing entities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
Uruguay and Venezuela. Only two remaining Telefonica entities still have
CDMA networks in operation. Additionally, in the past few years, both
Telecom Italia (TIM) and Millicom International chose to migrate each of
their five subsidiaries to a GSM network, as well as did numerous other
operators, including Cable & Wireless throughout the Caribbean. In the U.S.
and Canada, Cingular Wireless, T-Mobile USA and Rogers Wireless, as well as
numerous rural and regional operators who have chosen GSM, are contributing
to the technology's North American growth. GSM is now deployed in every
single country and territory in the Western Hemisphere.
"More than 58% of the total number of customers in Latin America and
the Caribbean are using GSM services, and this share of market continues to
increase," emphasized Chris Pearson, President of 3G Americas. "GSM
economies of scale are unmatched in the industry. GSM is not only the
number one mobile wireless technology in the world, but has the number one
market share with 48% of the entire wireless customer base in all of the
Western Hemisphere."
Globally, the GSM family of technologies continues its rapid evolution
to 3G high-speed wireless data. EDGE is commercially offered by 133
operators across 80 countries, including 31 countries in Latin America and
the Caribbean. Worldwide, there are 81 additional EDGE networks planned or
in deployment. There are currently 105 UMTS networks in service across 50
countries, with 59 more networks planned or in deployment. HSDPA, which is
an enhanced version of UMTS for high speed mobile broadband, was launched
first in the world by Cingular Wireless in December 2005. Now, five months
later, HSDPA is commercially deployed in 32 networks and 67 additional
operators have networks planned, in deployment, or in trial. It is expected
that nearly all UMTS operators will deploy HSDPA, essentially a simple
upgrade to UMTS, resulting in a significant increase in data capacity and
offering operators a much-reduced network cost for data services.
Pearson concluded, "The popularity of GSM has changed the world,
providing essential communications, convenience and productivity to every
corner of the globe. Historically, there have been few technologies that
have been able to transform people's lives as significantly as GSM."
Data is based on figures from Informa Telecoms & Media. Charts on GSM
growth as well as UMTS and HSDPA deployment lists are available at 3G
Americas' website: http://www.3gamericas.org/English/statistics/index.cfm.
About 3G Americas: Unifying the Americas through Wireless Technology
The mission of 3G Americas is to promote and facilitate the seamless
deployment throughout the Americas of GSM and its evolution to 3G and
beyond. The organization fully supports the Third Generation (3G)
technology migration strategy to EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA adopted by many
operators in the Americas that is expected to account for up to 85% of
next-generation customers worldwide. 3G Americas is headquartered in
Bellevue, WA with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas,
TX. For more information, visit our website at http://www.3gamericas.org.
About Informa Telecoms & Media
Informa Telecoms & Media provides business intelligence and strategic
services to the global telecoms and media markets. All of our products and
services -- from news, trend analysis and forecasting to industry data,
face-to-face events and training -- are driven by our deep understanding of
the markets we serve and by our goal to help our clients make better
business decisions. http://www.informatm.com
Contact:
Vicki Livingston
+1-262-242-3458
vicki.livingston@3gamericas.org
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