Market Briefing
Published: March 2009

Table of Contents

About the 3Q 2008 statistics	3
Mobile Penetration	4
Africa States by Mobile Penetration: 3Q 2008	4
Mobile Penetration Trends in African Markets: 3Q 2008	6
Middle East States by Mobile Penetration: 3Q 2008	9
African Top 50 Mobile Operators 3Q 2008	11
Middle East Top 40 Mobile Operators 3Q 2008	13
Subscriber Numbers	13
Africa & Middle East Top 50 Mobile Operators by Subscribers	15
North Africa States Mobile Network Subscriber Statistics: 3Q 2008	17
South Africa Mobile Network Subscriber Statistics: 3Q 2008	18
Middle East Mobile Operators Ranked by Subscribers 3Q 2008	20
Gulf Mobile Network Subscriber Statistics: 3Q 2008	21
East Mediterranean Mobile Network Subscriber Statistics: 3Q 2008	23
Net Additions	25
Top 50 Africa Operators by Net Additions 3Q08	25
Middle East States & Operators by Net Additions 3Q 2008	27
About this research service	30
Subscription Form	31

Summary

Each quarter the ‘Africa & Middle East Telecom-Week’ team of researchers comb through the official financial reports issued by the many mobile phone operators with operations in the region. This process provides subscriber numbers and market share country-by-country.

Many nations also sport an active regulator, many of whom are market-focused and provide good quality analysis and data sets for fixed and mobile operators, as well as also providing detailed snapshots of both Internet and broadcasting activities.

Many of the smaller, independent operators do not publish formal quarterly or annual data, or indeed publicly available financial reports. However, their senior management are often active in the local market and the team keep up-to-date monitoring local newsfeeds and blogs.

Last, but not least, are the correspondents and local operator staff who regularly provide detailed insights directly from market.

Generally, the statistics are ‘as published’ by the operator, and are intended to represent all lines that have been used at least once in the previous quarter. However, it is also known that some operators use different criteria, leading to the regulators in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt requesting that Etisalat provide data on recognised criteria, rather than a cumulative user figure.

In turn, the two Etisalat operations concerned said that they would be publishing the data at the year-end, in line with their normal reporting policies.

This has led the research team to take a view of what the figure should be. In the case of Egypt the regulator has subsequently published mid-year values, allowing accurate figures to be provided. In the case of Saudi Arabia the data has been modelled, based on known activity levels of both the operator concerned and its competitors.

Staying with Etisalat as a case in point, it claimed for the end of 2007 that its Moov operation in West Africa had some 2.9 million subscribers. This is thought to be unlikely. Not only are the values high in some markets where the regulator has published top-line market data, but also there remains question marks over the current ownership status of some of the operations, following court cases and ministerial intervention in some markets last year.

Although pre- and post-paid data is available in the bigger and more mature markets, it is lacking or questionable in some of the less well developed markets, and therefore for the purposes of this document has been ignored. However, it can be assumed that pre-paid is the dominant mobile plan across Africa. Likewise, there are now outcrops of 3G usage, notably in South Africa, and along the North African coast. Mobile subscriber data are inclusive of both 2 and 3G users.

The mobile data includes GSM and CDMA networks, but excludes fixed and CDMA-wireless networks, which are classed as an extension of the fixed network.

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The Africa & Middle East Telecoms Market Opportunities 2009 Wallchart: