NTT DoCoMo is the first 3G WCDMA commercial network. It had 5000 test subscribers in the Tokyo area in September 2001 and NTT DoCoMo announced that FOMA attracted 10,300 users in its first month of service. End of 2001 FOMA customer base was 27,000 with an ARPU (average revenue per user) of Yen10,400 a month. End of 2002 FOMA customer base was 152,000 and July 2003 about 650,000 users. On 29th of January 2004 NTT DoCoMo announced it had signed up 3G customer number two million. J-Phone in Japan had about 65,000 WCDMA user in July 2003. In August 2003 Hutchison said it had 155,000 3G subscribers in the United Kingdom, 300,000 in Italy and 50,000 in Australia. In September 3 Austria announced it had 10,000 subscribers and Hutchison had world-wide over 520,000
December 16th 2003 BBC news wrote "Hutchison Whampoa, who owns 3, has networks around the world with an estimated 660,000 customers, including a service in Hong Kong which launched this week."
March 5th 2004 The Standard wrote "Hutchison Whampoa's third generation (3G) mobile service is estimated to have signed up 50,000 Hong Kong subscribers in its first month, an indication that its aggressive pricing strategy may be paying off."
March 10th 2004 3G.co.uk wrote " 3 announced an ARPU of £44.56 in December 2003, 14% of 3’s revenue was data at 12/12/03 – in line with its business plan, up to December 2003 and 3 UK had attracted over 210,000 customers since its launch"
March 19th 2004 pcw.co.uk wrote that Hutchison announced that, globally, it has just topped the one million subscriber mark.
March 31st 2004 NTT DoDoMo announced the number of subscribers to its 3G FOMA service has reached three million, just two months after hitting the two million mark.
We will publish the 3G subscriber situations when more networks become commercial.
Mobile Subscribers Per Technology
24. February 2004 "GSM ... technology lays claim to 71.5 per cent of the world's 1.4 billion global subscriber base. CDMA has 13.3 per cent in second place, while TDMA has now peaked and, said Woolfrey [from EMC], is likely to be overtaken by GSM in Latin America-the TDMA stronghold-by 2007."
18. February 2004 CDG reported that CDMA added a record 14.5 million subscribers in 4Q 2003 to total 188 million users worldwide and GSA announced that GSM added a total of over 198 million new subscribers to reach almost 990 million in 2003.
eMarketer, in its November 2003 Wireless Worldwide report, estimates 2.3 million 3G mobile subscribers worldwide have WCDMA technology, representing roughly 36% of 3G subscribers worldwide.
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Technology
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Subscribers
|
|
GSM
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69.32%
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|
CDMA
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12.39%
|
|
TDMA
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9.66%
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|
Analogue
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3.13%
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|
PDC
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5.49%
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|
WCDMA
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0.01%
|
|
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Distribution of worldwide mobile subscribers per technology (September 2002).
Source: EMC via Northstream
More GSM and wireless statistics at GSM World statistics page and CDG statistics page
World Cellular Subscribers
Wireless subscribers forecast 2002 - 2007
Source: In-Stat report via Wireless Week; August 2003
Cellular subscribers: 1991-2007 77 Forecast countries
Source: The Research Room [www.theresearchroom.com], 2003 via 3Gnewsroom.com; Mid 2003
| Year |
Cellular Subscribers (millions) |
| 1991 |
15.9 |
| 1992 |
22.9 |
| 1993 |
33.8 |
| 1994 |
55.0 |
| 1995 |
87.2 |
| 1996 |
140.8 |
| 1997 |
210.2 |
| 1998 |
311.4 |
| 1999 |
481.8 |
| 2000 |
718.6 |
| 2001 |
926.2 |
| 2002 |
1,106.2 |
| 2003 |
1,255.8 |
| 2004 |
1,379.2 |
| 2005 |
1,494.1 |
| 2006 |
1,606.6 |
| 2007 |
1,676.7 |
Biggest GSM Operators
Unstrung published a list of Top 12 GSM operators by subscribers.
Biggest Mobile Markets
Subscriber figures are just estimates. Total world mobile subscriber amount is over 1200M, including more than 800M GSM and more than 160M cdma users.
 China, 320M subscribers; source: news article, Nov 2004
 USA, 172M subscribers; source CTIA, Nov 2004
 Japan 86.6M subscribers; source TCA Japan, Nov 2004
 Germany, 64.4M subscribers; source Unstrung, July 2002
 Italy, 53M subscribers; sources IHT, Early 2003
 United Kingdom ~50M subscribers; various sources, Mid 2003
 France, 39.4M subscribers; source ART, July 2003
 Brazil ~39M subscribers; June 2003
 South Korea ~33M subscribers; June 2003
 Spain ~33M subscribers; various sources, June 2003
EU 379M subscribers; source: news report, Nov 2004
Airtime Usage
November 2003: Airtime usage Source: eMarketer
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