Mobile News

The eastern European mobile market achieved 88% penetration at end-2009, this is forecast to pass 91% during 2009. Annual growth will slow, but we  expect penetration to exceed 94% in 2010 . Prepaid will be an important driver in this growth, with 60%-65% of net additions being captured by prepaid. We do not think it will be higher than this because the operators will begin to try and entice users on to a contract in order to maintain, and raise, ARPU levels. In 2009, prepaid will account for 70% of the total base and, by the end of the forecast period, we forecast that 71.5% of mobile customers will use prepaid services.

During this period of growth ARPU has dropped sharply, we expect it to stabilise in 2009 and then begin to rise slowly. From 2009 on, prepaid services will generate over 40% of the total cellular revenues, rising to 50% by 2010.