The New Nation - Internet Edition

Business Report

Warid Telecom will continue to set pace for subscriber growth in the country's mobile sector, while GrameenPhone market share (by subscribers) would decrease from 45.2% to 42.5% in the forecast period, 2008 - 2010 according to New Mobile Operator Market Research Report by IEMR.

IE Market Research Corp (IEMR), the Canadian-based provider of market intelligence services, recently announced the release of its 4Q08 Bangladesh Mobile Operator Forecast. IEMR's Bangladesh Mobile Operator Forecast covers up to 65 financial and operational metrics on six wireless operators.

The largest operator in the country will continue to be GrameenPhone (Telenor), but its market share (by subscribers) will decrease from 45.2% to 42.5% in the forecast period, 2008 -- 2010. Overall, GrameenPhone will be losing market shares to a smaller operator, Warid, over the next three years the report said.

According to the report, total subscribers in Bangladesh would increase from the projected 51.5 million in 2008 to 67.6 million in 2010.

The level of wireless penetration will increase steadily in Bangladesh from our projected 31.8% in 2008 to 40.3% in 2010 the report forecasted.

The level of competition in the wireless market will continue to increase, and the HHI index will go down from 0.295 in 2008 to 0.280 in 2010.

IEMR's Global Mobile Operator Forecast covers up to 65 operational metrics of 213 mobile operators in 50+ countries, making up 80% of the world's population. Forecasts are based on our proprietary, country-specific forecasting models. These models deploy multiple regression analysis and cross-impact matrices that estimate relationships between subscriber data, technology use and deployment data, overall economic and demographic changes expected in a particular country; and relate these to company operational and financial metrics.

"The 4Q08 Mobile Operator Forecasts demonstrate IEMR's capability to gather information from a variety of global resources and model it into accurate and timely forecasts for our clients," said Nizar Assanie, Vice President of Research at IEMR. "Clients will find the information easily accessible, comprehensive, and exceptionally relevant to enable them to make sound business and investment decisions about mobile operators and vendors strategies."