The Turkish mobile penetration rate reached 88.8% at the end of Q2 08, up 8.0pp year on year, with an end-quarter customer base of 63.81m. On a quarterly basis net additions stood at 1.27m, while the annual gain was 6.28m, the lowest figure for four years. Meanwhile, proportionate annual growth was down to 10.9%, the lowest level ever recorded in Turkey.
The graph below may seem to suggest a dramatic decline in Q2 08, but in fact the four previous growth rates were significantly boosted by an extraordinary Q2 07, which saw net additions of 3.71m.
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Quarterly Net Additions and Rolling Annual Growth
The decline in growth is in fact a long-term trend – the result, in all probability, of the increasing penetration rate.
Turkcell continues to dominate the Turkish market with 35.4m customers at the end of Q2, but its market share was down 3.3pp compared to Q2 07 at 55.5%. In fact, it has lost market share fairly consistently over the past four years, with a total loss of 11.9pp, approximately 3pp a year. Although its Q2 08 net gain of 0.3m customers was an improvement on Q1 08, when it lost 0.3m, it was still the lowest figure in the market. Moreover, its annual uplift of 1.6m was also lower than the figures recorded by rivals Vodafone and Avea.
Turkcell’s earest competitor Vodafone took top spot for annual net additions with a figure of 2.48m, but with a customer base of 17.41m it remained less than half the size of Turkcell. Meanwhile, Avea claimed the market’s best figure for quarterly net additions for the first time in its history with a boost of 0.5m. It finished the quarter with 11.0m customers and 17.2% market share, up 1.9pp year on year. Annual net additions stood at 2.2m.
Avea was also the market’s fastest growing operator on a proportionate basis with annual growth of 25.0%, up from 23.9% in the prior twelve-month period. Vodafone saw a 15.4pp decline in growth to 16.6%, while Turkcell was down 8.6pp to 4.7%. |
Source: Cellular News.