Top-20 Telecom Groups - based on proportionate subscribers

In the Teleseeq study for the top-20 telecoms companies in 2Q06, MII China group ranked number one in terms of proportionate subscribers, followed by Vodafone and Telefonica. About 4 countries from Asia have joined the list but majority of the companies listed in the top-20 are Western European incumbents who have holdings in other locations such as Eastern Europe and Asia.

[ClickPress, Thu Oct 19 2006] InfoCom Top-20 telecom groups takes into account the number of subscribers (fixed, mobile and Internet) based on the group’s proportionate shareholding in other companies (see Fig. 1). For 2Q06, MII China group outranked number two Vodafone by a substantial lead of about 460m subscribers, for a total of 665m subscribers, which are all based in China. The majority of the subscribers are still from fixed line companies that come from MII China’s holdings in China Telecom and China Netcom, while MII China’s mobile subscribers can be attributed to its 75% holding in China Mobile.

Vodafone and 3rd place holder Telefónica have a wider reach in terms of territories: both have subscribers based in Western and Eastern Europe. Vodafone has holdings in Western and Eastern Europe as well as the US, with the markets that have proportionate subscribers totalling 20m and above being Germany, Italy and the US. Telefónica has shareholdings in Latin American companies but has reached Eastern Europe through its purchase of Cesky Telecom in 2005 and other Western European countries through its acquisition of O2. Deutsche Telekom also has a number of holdings in Eastern Europe, some of which are incumbents (e.g. Croatia’s T-Hrvatski Telecom and Hungary’s Magyar Telekom) and has mobile and Internet operations in Western Europe and North America (e.g. T-Mobile Germany, UK and USA) to make it reach 4th place with about 168m subscribers.

Other Western European incumbents that have made it to the list are France Télécom (7th), Telecom Italia (11th), Telenor (12th), TeliaSonera (15th), Portugal Telecom (19th) and BT (20th).

Another company, apart from MII China or China Unicom, that made it into the top-20 without having overseas operations is MIT India, which managed to reach 13th place. Although its overall population is close to China’s, India, in terms of fixed line or mobile subscribers, still is significantly behind China. Rounding off the list is BT, which has about 37m proportionate subscribers in 2Q06, replacing 1Q06’s 20th place holder Turkcell.

Please visit http://www.infocom-de.com/pressarchives/press_191006.html to see the graph.
Title: Top-20 telecom groups based on proportionate subscribers in millions at 2Q06

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InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with almost 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom’s independent and fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage.
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