In the recent report published by Telegeography, which says Vodafone no longer holds the No.1 position in Wireless revenues anymore and is overtaken by China Mobile (Or rather China Mobile Communication Corporation), who is now at top spot. Are you taken by surprise?
Of course not! The juggernaut of China Mobile was evident when in June-09 it claimed to have 501 million wireless subscribers, which till date itself is a record. If you go by subscriber count, then China Mobile surpassed Voda long back in 2002, and now is way ahead of its rivals Voda & America Movil, which had 315 million and 190 million subscribers in the belly, at the same date.
How did this happen? Actually Vodafone still relies on W.Eurpoe market for majority of its revenues and which also commands very high ARPU (4 times as that of Voda’s China Operations) for Voda. But then China Mobile’s runaway subscriber growth has actually compensated the negative impact on revenue of low ARPUs, relative to Vodafone. The analysts also say that China Mobile’s market will continue to grow at 10{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} rate, as compared to W.Europe’s 2{af589cdba9d77786c8c861317dbad60bba1e2ebbf56e2ffab874a1b59fde9ce3} growth rate. Though Vodafone has tasted fair amount success in its India operations, it will continue to rely on revenues from W.Europe’s market, which is growing at a slower rate. So in short, we are likely to see China Mobile actually consolidating its position in coming years, whereas Voda will continue to trail behind.
For rest of the others (6 of them), majority of them had already consolidated their positions in local Wireline Markets like AT &T etc, who will continue to lead the tally in total Telecom Operations revenue along with strengthening their wireless presence.
