Mobile Computing

UK Customer Base
No. of Mobile Customers by Provider

Growth in the UK has been as much as 4% per month (over 50% per annum). The biggest growth has been in pre-paid phones. Orange, for example, had over 86% of its last quarter 99 sales for pre-paid phones. Pre-paid are particularly attractive to the lower social-economic groups, an offering that has opened up the mass market. Despite the higher call costs with pre-paid mobiles, the income per subscriber has been falling. Now with the market reaching saturation and competition reducing call charges, the mobile operators have decided to substantially reduced the subsidies on new mobiles. The cheapest mobiles will now double in price to £60 or so.

An earlier prediction that by 2005 around 80% of the UK population will have a mobile, accounting for 90% of voice calls, now seems likely to be reached much earlier. With many consumers, especially the young, opting for mobiles only, BT, the major fixed line player will be under even more pressure. Originally BT had 100% of fixed lines but with competition from cable companies now has just 75% of lines. They will need to look to other revenue streams such as high speed internet access, ISP services and video on demand.

External References
 

1. Larsen, Peter Thal, 1998, Mobile phone sales set to double in five years, The Independent, 22 October 1998, p21. [Well they got the title wrong because sales doubled in the next year!].
2. McIntosh, Bill, 1999, No end in sight to Britain's mobile revolution, The Independent, 5 October 1999.
3. McIntosh, Bill, 2000, Handset sales near 50,000 a day as mobile phone fever grips UK, The Independent, 6 January 2000, p16.
4. See the full list of resources for this web site for other related resources.

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JS

External Resources

1. Also see the full list of resources for this web site for other related resources.

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