THE mobile phone boom is continuing apace, according to the latest
sales data by the two leaders in the field, Cellnet and Vodafone.
Total subscribers now top two million, with a 46% rise over the past
year taking the figure to 2,190,000.
Cellnet and Vodafone are in fierce head-to-head competition and last
month Vodafone took the laurels, seeing net new subscribers of 58,500
against Cellnet's 46,900.
Vodafone has normally led Cellnet, but the latter has been catching up
and claims to have beaten Vodafone over the past year as a whole, taking
on 360,000 subscribers, representing 53% of the total signed up by the
industry.
Its share of the consumer market is put at 59%. Cellnet has taken
steps to strengthen its links with High Street service providers.
Both operators have moved through the one-million mark, with Vodafone
now claiming a total of 1,174,000 subscribers and Cellnet 1,019,000.
Vodafone said that over 234,000 were on the low-call consumer tariff,
where high-call charges are offset by lower monthly subscription fees.
But a majority chose other higher-margin tariffs.
''March is traditionally a good month for mobile phone sales but it
was particularly pleasing that more than 55% of our net new subscribers
selected the business and digital tariffs,'' said managing director
Chris Gent.
The growth in both companies' subscriber base has accelerated as the
recession has eased, and competition has hotted up. This has prompted
heavier marketing spending.
Both companies have introduced low-cost tariffs to encourage consumers
to enlist and these have proved successful.
''Over the year prices have come down, choice has increased and
competition has been fierce with the winners being the hundreds of
thousands of people who now enjoy the benefits of a mobile phone for the
first time,'' said Cellnet managing director Bob Warner. The company is
a joint venture between BT and Securicor.
Competition will become even fiercer with the recent entry of Mercury
into the market and the imminent start of Hutchison's Orange service.
Mercury has the catchy marketing ploy of free local calls though its
network is limited so far to around the London area. It has not
disclosed how many subscribers it has signed up since starting last
September.
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