62 million mobile customers in France

The French mobile market continues to grow. In late June, the park had 61.9 million mobile customers, according to "Mobile Monitor," published Tuesday by Arcep, the regulatory authority for electronic communications and postal services. With a penetration rate of 95.8%, the number of mobile packages has increased by 4.6% in one year. In Corsica, Ile-de-France and PACA region, the penetration rate exceeding even 100%. "Even if the growth slows, the French market continues to grow. This is not the case in other European countries, "says a spokesman Arcep.

Over 70% of the park consists of packages in the form of subscriptions, an increase of 8.9% over one year. The number of prepaid cards was down 4.8% to 17.8 million units.In this, France is a new European exception: the hexagon has the largest fleet of subscription packages, when in Italy, while the market is controlled by pre-paid cards. However, a subscription is worth 40 to 45 euros per month, against 15 euros for a prepaid card.

134.5 SMS per month

Telcos have also scored points with their unlimited SMS packages: in June, 24.2 billion SMS messages were sent, a jump of 65.3% in one year. On average, a customer sends text messages per month and 134.5.

Another factor of growth: the development of key 3G, which can connect to the Internet via the mobile network. About 2.4 million cards in circulation SIM Internet, up 64% compared to 2009.Added to this are two million SIM cards machine to machine (M2M), for connecting standard appliances such as ATMs, the Internet. "The data and M2M are two segments of growth for operators," says Arcep. Àcondition change business model: the rise of mobile Internet traffic, the bandwidth costs explode, forcing operators to upgrade their data rates. They were previously rather low, while the operators were taking advantage of higher rates on voice.

Finally, the market share of virtual operators (MVNO) continues to grow. It reached 6.2% over the period, against 5.17% in June 2009.

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