European W-CDMA

Europe had 39m WCDMA subscribers (+140%) at Sept.-end, and added 5.9m 3G users in 3Q06. Penetration was still low at about 1% of the population, but WCDMA accounted for more than 28% of the added customers in 3Q06. WCDMA represented about 6.5% of total European customer base at Sept.-end, vs 3% a year earlier. Italy is the largest market with some 14.6m 3G users, about 19% of its total cellular subscriptions (76.5m). UK is second with 6.6m 3G customers, or 10% of its total mobile subscribers. Germany ranks third with about 5m or 6.2% of its total mobile population. The three countries combined account for over 66% of the European 3G customers. But quarterly results highlight that most European mobile operators are failing to achieve significant increases in non-voice ARPU, while it was the main objective when deploying 3G. Two exceptions, however, O2 UK has increased its non-voice ARPU by about 20% a year, and 3UK has achieved the highest non-voice ARPU levels in the world, thanks to innovative 3G services, such as mobile TV, music downloads and user-generated content.