The Top 10 Markets in Asia-Pacific Region

There have been some significant changes to the top 10 largest markets in Asia Pacific by customer numbers between Q4 2006 and Q1 2007. The top six places remain unchanged, with China and India unchallenged in first and second places, respectively, and Japan still well ahead of Indonesia and safe in third place at least for another year or so. Pakistan remains in fifth place, finishing Q1 2007 with 55.6m customers and pulling further away from the Philippines which remains in sixth.

The first changes to the order in the quarter are in seventh and eighth places. During the quarter, Thailand, which was in eighth place at the end of 2006, added 3.2m new mobile connections which propelled it more than 2m ahead of South Korea, thereby winning it South Korea's seventh place come March. South Korea itself moved to eighth, and remains unchallenged by any other market for the time being. The next market to challenge South Korea for eighth place will almost certainly be one or other of the markets in ninth and tenth places at the end of March 2007. Bangladesh, in ninth, was tenth three months ago but overtook previous holder Taiwan after net additions of almost 3m in the first three months of the year. Taiwan was not only overtaken by Bangladesh, but also by Vietnam, which moved into tenth place by a margin of just over 150,000 customers, with a total of 22.3m at the end of Q1 2007. As a result Taiwan has been ousted from the top 10 for the first time, never, unfortunately, to return