Voice traffic carried over Western Europe’s cellular networks will increase more than fivefold between 1999 and 2005 to reach 1.1 trillion minutes per year, according to a new study from Strategy Analytics titled, “Western European Cellular Market Forecast (2000-2005).”
Cellular pricing levels, however, will rise at a more modest rate due to continued erosion of cellular pricing levels. Revenues are expected to increase from $60 billion in 1999 to $130 billion in 2005, the study said.
The number of cellular users in Western Europe will increase from 184 million in mid-2000 to 326 million by year-end 2005, representing a penetration increase from 47 percent to 83 percent, said Strategy Analytics.
“Penetration will not go much higher than that,” said Phil Kendall, director of Mobile Communic-ations Service Europe. “That effectively equates to everyone between the ages of 10 and 75 and a reasonable slice of those beyond these extremes.
“The increased use of multiple terminals by users will help to push device penetration beyond 100 percent, but by 2005 we expect cellular operators will find it hard going to sell cellular services to anyone who does not already have them,” Kendall said.
By mid-2000, 5 percent of mobile-phone users in Western Europe had more than one handset and more than one mobile-phone account. But by 2005, this figure will increase to 21 percent, with the number of cellular devices exceeding the number of cellular users by 69 million, according to the study.
Prepaid accounts also are expected to increase from 56 percent of all mobile accounts now, to 74 percent of all accounts by 2005.
“Prepaid services have a considerable momentum in the region at the moment. Even those underperforming prepaid markets, such as Germany and France, have recorded significant upswings in prepaid take-up rates during 2000. There is little to suggest that many markets will experience any noticeable swing back in favor of postpaid billing over the next five years,” Kendall noted.
