Asia Mobile Subscribers Top 2 Billion in 2009

Singapore, May 17, 2010-There were 2.04 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2009 in Asia and this translated into a significant 22.7% growth over the year. By the end of 2009, mobile accounted for 79.7% of all telephone connections in the region, compared with 60.1% in 2005. The number of mobile subscribers is forecasted to have grown by an average of 10.6% to 3.4 billion by the end of 2014 and at that time, mobile penetration should have reached 94.3%.

China and India are by far the region’s two largest mobile markets with an estimated 748 million and 525 million mobile subscribers respectively at the end of 2009. Together these two countries generate 62.3% of Asia’s mobile connections. On the other hand, China and India have some of the lowest mobile penetrations in the region, standing at 56.0% and 44.7% respectively. On the other hand of the spectrum, countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore enjoy by far some of the highest mobile penetration rates in Asia and the world with 174.4% and 137.1% mobile penetration respectively at the end of 2009.

India and Vietnam have benefited from the highest levels of mobile subscriber growth in 2009, with estimated growth rates of 51.4% and 56.1% respectively. This report, which includes 28 detailed exhibits and tables on Asia’s telecom market, confirms that Japan and New Zealand suffered from the region’s lowest mobile subscriber growth in 2009. "The economic recession has hit hard in some of the region’s countries, translating into stagnation in mobile subscriber growth" HOT TELECOM’s president Isabelle Paradis said.

Find out more about Asia’s fixed, mobile and Internet markets in HOT TELECOM’s new 28-page Asia statistics and forecast report: http://www.hottelecom.com/asia-stats.html