WASHINGTON-Cellular and personal communications services subscribers are expected to more than double from 210.7 million at the end of 1997 to 450 million by the end of 2000, according to the Strategis Group’s recent projections.
By the end of 1997, the Asia-Pacific region pulled ahead of North America as the largest cellular/PCS market, and by the end of this year, Europe is expected to bump North America from its second-place position, said the Washington, D.C.-based research firm, in its report, “World Cellular/PCS Markets: 1998.”
Asia-Pacific is expected to account for 38.5 percent of subscribers worldwide by 2003, followed by Europe with 24 percent, and then North America with 20 percent. The growth in Brazil’s market is expected to increase Latin America’s share to more than 9 percent during the period.
Digital subscribers outnumbered analog subscribers for the first time at the end of last year.
Of the three dominant worldwide PCS technologies-Global System for Mobile communications, Code Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access-GSM is expected to experience the most rapid growth, increasing from 71 million subscribers at the end of last year to more than 364 million in 2003, fueled by growth in Western Europe and Asia. GSM networks will support 52 percent of all subscribers worldwide by 2003, Strategis predicted.
CDMA also is projected to experience substantial subscriber growth, adding nearly 134 million subscribers between 1998 and 2003. CDMA subscribers are expected to more than double by the end of this year to 17.8 million, from the 7.4 million counted at the end of last year.
TDMA is expected to see slower growth than the other digital technologies, increasing from 8.1 million subscribers in 1997 to 76.4 million in 2003.
Other digital technologies, including Personal Digital Communications and Personal Handyphone System in Japan are expected to remain the second most-used digital technologies until 2000, when they will be eclipsed by CDMA, and eventually TDMA in 2002, the report said.
