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Second quarter results from major operators across emerging markets in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe show modest growth in subscriptions and usage. According to a recent report from Strategy Analytics, after three successive flat or declining quarters, average minutes of use (MOU) for a basket of 26 key operators climbed 5% in Q2 2009. Total subscriptions rose 4%, continuing a recovering trend begun in the first quarter of the year.
However, the report author Tom Elliott says it’s still not time to open the champagne. “There is still a lot of potential weakness in these markets,” he said, adding that handset sales remain well below the levels of a year ago, and many carriers have been unable to convert growth in subscriptions and traffic into increased revenue.
Moreover, emerging market economies also remain highly dependent on conditions in the developed world. Factors that will certainly help bring back the higher rate of growth include demand for commodity products, foreign aid and home-bound remittances from overseas workers.
President of Strategy Analytics, Harvey Cohen, said this global crisis has debunked the myth that developed and developing economies have been decoupled. “Growth of communications activity is a good indicator of economic health, particularly at the so-called ‘bottom of the pyramid.’ If you don’t have the money you’re not going to buy that phone, or make that extra call,” he concluded.
[Via: CellularNews]
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
