China, India top 'emerging mobile mkt'

Maintaining its position as the world's largest mobile market, China has surpassed India by adding the most new mobile subscribers in a single year to become the fastest growing mobile market.

China boasted 86 million additional mobile subscribers compared with India's 84 million in the year 2007, according to a report 'Top 10 Emerging Mobile Markets 2007'.

Produced by 'TechWeb's Light Reading,' a leading business technology media, the report said that world's populous nations are among the fastest growing mobile market producing 320 million new mobile phone subscribers in 2007, an increase of more than 27 per cent.

But in contrast, the world's mature markets are now so saturated that even if the ranking was open to them, only US, would have made the cut, said the report.

"So-called emerging markets have become the drivers of mobile growth, and the top 10 countries in our list alone account for about a third of the 3 billion subscribers worldwide," says Light Reading reporter Nicole Willing, who compiled the report. "These are the hottest markets to watch in the mobile world, and they have plenty more room to grow."

The statistics show that the percentage of subscriber growth in India has slowed as its subscriber base has grown. In 2006, operators saw a 97 per cent increase in their total subscriber base as they added 73.56 million new subscribers, whereas in 2007 the increase was down to 56.15 per cent, the report said.

Apart from China and India, the countries ranked in the top 10, are, Indonesia, Pakistan Brazil, Russia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Iran and Egypt.