APAC mobile dominance

APAC mobile dominance (numbers at 3Q07-end)

In the top 20 mobile networks by customers, 8 are located in APAC; 6 are coming from China and India and account for over 650m subscribers or 20% of the worldwide total. The 6 are located 2 in China (China Mobile and China Unicom) and 4 in India (Bharti, Reliance, Vodafone India and BSNL). DoCoMo (53m) and Telkomsel

(about 45m), KDDI (29m), and Pakistan Mobile (29m) complement the landscape to get the top 10 APAC MNOs, accounting for 810m-820m subscribers. The dominance is re-enforced by a tremendous growth rate. India added over 8m new subscribers in Nov. and China continues to add 5m-6m new users per month. Facts are shaking forecast made few years ago ( with the authority of their reputed authors) that such growth (in the Chinese case) was not sustainable for years. And the regional potential for growth is not yet limited with lots of countries asking for communications (i.e. Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia ).