UAE mobile phone users peak at over 13m

Mobile phone users in the UAE peaked at nearly 13.04 million at the end of September, expanding the country’s GSM penetration rate to 159 per cent, one of the world’s highest levels, according to official data.

Around 11.39 million of them are subscribers in the pre-paid mobile service while the rest are covered by the monthly bill GSM service.

The figures by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), which oversees the telecom sector in the second largest Arab economy, showed nearly 850,000 new mobile phone users joined the market in the first nine months of 2012.

They account for around 77 per cent of the 1.1 million new subscribers in mobile, fixed lines and internet services in the country during that period.

TRA figures showed the new users boosted the total subscribers to all telecom services by Etisalat and Du to 15.9 million at the end of September 2012.

They showed the number of new users in the first nine months was nearly 90 per cent above their number in the same period of 2011. The report attributed the surge to promotion campaigns and attractive offers by the two service providers.
 

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