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Asia Pacific Tops 1 Billion Mobile Subscribers

To coincide with this week's 3GSM World Congress Asia, Informa Telecoms & Media reports that the region is set to break through the 1 billion mobile subscription barrier at the end of the month.

According to Informa, the number of mobile subscriptions in Asia Pacific has doubled in just three years and GSM now accounts for nearly 80 percent of the region's total subscriptions. Informa forecasts that Asia Pacific will account for 45 percent of global subscription growth by the end of this year and will rise to well over 50 percent by 2007.

Liz Hall, Principal Analyst at Informa comments "the world's most populated region represents nearly 40 percent of the world's mobile subscriptions, yet mobile penetration in Asia Pacific stands at just 30 percent -- this means 2.6 billion people within the region have yet to be connected to a mobile cellular service."

In the first nine months of 2006 the Asia Pacific mobile subscription base rose by 160 million with China, India and Pakistan accounting for 70 percent of this growth.

Alongside these three markets other developing countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam have shown significant growth during 2006 -- adding a combined total of 25 million new subscriptions during the first nine months of the year.

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