News
Gulf mobile market grows 47 per cent
Tim Green Sep 3 2007, 10:30am
The Middle Eastern mobile market is the fastest growing in the world, says Informa.
The region added around 35 million new users between the second quarter of 2006 and second quarter of 2007, a 47 per cent gain that trounced the 36 per cent gain made by Americas and Western Europe. By the end of the year, the number of GSM users in the Gulf stood at 100 million.
Much of this growth is due to regional telecom operators, who have rolled out new networks across the region as home monopolies have been opened to competition. In the first quarter of 2007 Kuwait's MTC operated in 19 markets, Egypt's Orascom had subsidiaries in 13 countries, Etisalat had 10 and Qtel nine, according to Informa data.
These figures are set to grow still further, as new licences in Qatar open up this year and Kuwait ushers in a third mobile operator in 2008.
In overall subscriber volume terms, Asia-Pacific that grew fastest. It took on roughly 275 million new GSM customers, while Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Americas and Africa each added more than 50 million.
