France adds 4.5 mln mobile users as porting rises fast in Q4

News Wireless France 8 FEB 2013
France adds 4.5 mln mobile users as porting rises fast in Q4
France had 73.1 million mobile customers at the end of 2012, 4.5 million more than a year earlier, according to telecom regulator Arcep. Sim card penetration in mainland France and its overseas markets reached 112 percent at the end of 2012. Within the total, mainland France added 1.2 million mobile users in the quarter to reach 70.5 million, with the base growing by 6.9 percent in a year. There was strong growth in the fourth quarter in flat plan customers (1.1 million) and M2M cards (280,000), writes Arcep, without quantifying the growth attributed to mobile-enabled tablets. France's four MNOs had 62.8 million customers at the end of 2012. MVNOs saw their market share dip by 0.4 points to 13 percent, partly due to Carrefour Mobile's 7.7 million customers being taken over by its host MNO. A third of mobile plans in use at the end of the year were contract-free. On a strongly rising trend, some 7.3 million mobile numbers were ported in 2012, reflecting the entry of a new MNO and the rate at which customers are switching between mobile operators.

Categories:

Mobile

Companies:

Carrefour,  Arcep

Countries:

France

Tags:

Voice services, Data services, Messaging, Consumer devices, Wireless, Consumer, Enterprise, Handsets, Market research

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