Four of Asia’s top ten fastest growing mobile carriers are from India (Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Idea), while there are two mobile operators each from China (China Mobile, Unicom), Indonesia (Indosat, XL) and Vietnam (Viettel, Vietnam Mobile). Both China and India account for more than 900 million mobile phone subscribers, which is close to a quarter of worldwide total users.
When 2 out of 5 people in the region own a cell phone, this presents compelling opportunities for business and marketing to the world’s most populous and diverse market - the Asia Pacific.
For instance, SMS accounts for 31% of telco revenue in Indonesia, Asia’s third most populous country. Whereas Chinese mobile users sent 57 billion text messages in August and that works out to an average of 3 sms per user per day.
Over a third of market leader China Mobile’s current 400 million subscribers use their mobile handsets to listen to music, much higher than in the US, UK, France and Germany.
Cellular News reported that in the second quarter of 2008, the top ten high-growth mobile operators gained a combined 65 million new cellphone subscribers, or two thirds of the regional total and more than a third of the worldwide total.
Net additions were 52 million mobile subscribers in the January to March period of this year.
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier and dominant Chinese player, leads the region’s growth as it has done for the last few years, by adding 22.45 million new customers in the second quarter of 2008.
India’s Bharti Airtel continues its blistering growth and maintains the 2nd spot with a new record of 7.4 mil net additions. In fact, each of Bharti’s last 13 quarters has set a new record.
Third-placed Indosat, Indonesia’s second largest mobile carrier after PT Telkom, added 5.95 mil new connections and its subscriber base totaled 32.4 mil. Riding on the significant growth in Indonesia’s mobile market, this is easily Indosat’s best ever quarter, bettering the 2.5 million from Q4 last year by more than 100% and allowing it to take more than two percentage points of market share.
Source: Cellular News
