WASHINGTON-More than 60 million people in the United States will be cellular subscribers by the end of this century, Economic and Management Consultants International Inc. predicts in a new report.
In “The U.S. Cellular Marketplace: 1995,” EMCI projects that by 2000 there will be an aggregate of 80 million cellular and personal communications services users-an average of 1.8 subscribers per household. This results in a household penetration of more than 43 percent, with upper income households having a penetration of more than 96 percent.
EMCI notes that business usage as a percentage of total cellular usage has declined from 52 percent in 1992 to 38 percent at mid-year 1995.
The company found that subscriber churn represents a continuing problem and in fact has been magnified by the increase in low-usage subscribers that tend to have higher churn rates. The report estimates that total churn is 2.5 percent per month.
EMCI believes the implementation of the first commercial PCS networks in late 1995 will have an indelible effect on the entire mobile telephony marketplace. By 2005, the company projects that the cellular industry will lose more than 30 percent of its market share to PCS and emerging enhanced specialized mobile radio carriers.
However, EMCI’s market share projections are by license type. With a number of carriers preparing to offer networks over both cellular and PCS, the report emphasized that competition will be between carriers not network types.
