Mobile subscriber growth

Mobile subscriber growth is interesting to analyse because it outpaced everything predicted in past years, even by well know gurus. For years, mobile services were thought to be the protected garden of developed countries, because of relative high prices of services, costs of handsets and networks, only available to high-income households. By nature, low-income countries were put out for a while. Then, competition and price-cutting have shown that the upper part (in terms of household income) of developing countries could be reached and make an excellent driver for growth for the mobile industry. So subscriber growth in developing countries is the result of a triple phenomenon:

ð                  average household income is increasing by 4-8% a year driven by economic expansion,

ð                  handset and network costs are decreasing (handset subsidizes, and remember GSMA initiative to build a max $40 GSM handset).

ð                  deregulation and market opening stimulate network investment and drive down service rates.

So, the result is tremendous growth in Asia (China, India, .; ) in Latam and Africa. But for the moment, developing countries are still in the first building phase and voice is still the basic service. New high-end services will not be available for the mass immediately, maintaining some digital divide for a while. Mobile service is, however, seen in developing countries as the only possible way to communicate, with fixed lines services reduced to short allowance.