Communiqué de presse

With 2,577,800 new subscribers in December, France now has over 20.5 million mobile telephone subscribers

Paris, 11 January 2000

The Autorité de régulation des télécommunications (ART) recently released the numbers for mobile telephone subscriber numbers for the month of December.

ART reminds readers that it publishes a mobile telephony Observatory each month. This Observatory is the only recognized reference for the market. Before waiting for the complete document for December, which will be published sometime next week, ART has already released the figures as of 31 December 1999 for mobile telephony.

Mobile telephone sales broke all records this past Christmas season, with 2.5 million people in France subscribing to one of the three French operators (Itinéris and Améris – in the Antilles – for France Télécom; SFR and SRR – in Reunion – for Cegetel; Bouygues Télécom)

The 20 million subscriber mark was topped by 31 December 1999, as shown in the table below.

  Number of subscriptions 31 December 1999 Net growth for the months of December Net growth over the past six months
Itinéris 9,848,800 1,192,500 2,963,300
Améris 202,200 29,400 67,000
Groupe France Télécom 10,051,000 1,221,900 3,030,300
France Télécom market share 48.7% 47.4%  
 
SFR 7,223,800 856,100 2,065,100
SRR 111,000 7,400 32,500
Groupe Cegetel 7,334,800 863,500 2,097,600
Cegetel market share 35.6% 33.5%  
 
Bouygues Télécom 3,233,200 492,400 1,274,200
Bouygues Télécom market share 15.7% 19.1%  
 
TOTAL 20,619,100 2,577,800 6,402,100
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The table shows that over one in three French citizens now owns a cell phone: the penetration rate has reached 34.3%.

  31 December 99 31 December 98 31 December 97 31 December 96
Groupe France Télécom 10,051,000 5,552,000 3,080,000 1,430,000
Groupe Cegetel 7,334,000 4,251,000 2,231,000 941,000
Bouygues Télécom 3,233,000 1,406,000 505,000 90,000
Total 20,619,000 11,210,000 5,817,000 1,302,000
Annual growth 9,408,000 5,392,000 3,354,000  
% of annual growth 84% 93% 136%  
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The table above shows the extraordinary rise in the number of mobile telephone subscriptions; the number has been multiplied by 16 in just three years.


Linked documents

  Consult the cell phone observatory