Global System for Mobile communications providers met last week in Montreal for the 42nd plenary meeting of the GSM Association to discuss the technology’s evolution and products and services, though by press time the group did not make any specific announcements on the topics.
“We will by the end of the year be very close to reaching 250 million subscribers around the world,” Michael Stocks, chairman of the association, told reporters at a press conference early last week.
“We will have about 600 million by 2003 and probably three-quarters of a billion by 2005 … Sixty percent of the population use GSM technology. We do expect 100-percent penetration in markets like Italy and Finland by the end of the year.”
Stocks indicated prepaid services have played a large role in GSM technology’s take-rate around the world. By the end of September, 66 million customers subscribed to prepaid GSM services.
Today, GSM customers number more than 215 million in 141 countries. That is the message North American GSM operators want to take to U.S. and Canadian consumers. As such, the GSM North American Alliance is stepping up its marketing campaign to compete with strong nationwide brand names like AT&T Corp. and Sprint PCS. U.S. GSM operators are in the midst of consolidating and have yet to gain a nationwide footprint under one company’s brand name. Alliance companies added more than 620,000 customers in the third quarter, ending the quarter with about 4.8 million customers.
The association unveiled a new branding logo, GSM Global Network, and it intends to educate consumers on GSM technology’s extensive footprint. The education began with advertising last week in select U.S. and Canadian newspapers.
“This is only a preview,” said Bob Brown, executive director of the alliance. “Over the next few months, it will begin to appear in point-of-sales collateral, advertising, packaging, products, services and more. As we transition to the use of this logo, we believe it will help customers associate the world superiority of these phones with the high quality service we provide.”
The GSM Association added 55 new members last week, including third-generation licensee Suomen Kolmegee Oy of Finland. Lucent Technologies Inc. also was inducted as a member.
Last Monday, all four Market Representation Partners of the 3G Partnership Project-the Global Mobile Suppliers Organization, the GSM Association, UMTS Forum and the Universal Wireless Communications Consortium-agreed to strengthen their contribution toward the work of 3GPP in support of the International Telecommunication Union’s IMT-2000 program.
