Time For A New User Metric

Author: Bhavya Khanna, Research Analyst, Wireless

Published: 19 Mar 2010

Cellphone subscriber penetration crossed 100% in most developed economies long ago and penetration levels are now inching up in the developing world, as average prices for both cell-phones and pre-paid mobile plans have plummeted over the last two years. Lower prices combined with the rising popularity of dual SIM capable phones have given a boost to subscriber growth, which has taken off globally. However, subscriber numbers are no longer very reflective of the actual number of cell-phone customers, so distinguishing between a person and an active SIM card has become very important, with most mobile operators using the latter as the basis for their subscriber numbers.

The full text of this Insight is available to subscribers of the Mobile Operator Strategies Research Service.

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