via CAAI
January 19, 2011
PHNOM PENH, Jan 19, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The number of mobile phone users in Cambodia has increased by 55 percent to 9.8 million in 2010 if compared to 2009 thanks to bigger extent of economy and increasing business activities, So Khun, minister of post and telecommunication said on Wednesday.
"By the end of last year, 9.8 million or 66 percent of the total 14.7 million Cambodian people have been using mobile phones," he told reporters.
The number of mobile phone users in Cambodia has steadily increased from 3.8 million in 2008 to 6.3 million in 2009 and up to 9.8 million by last year.
"It's sharply up in the past few years and the rise is expected to continue in coming years," he said. "This reflects the progress in scope and scale of telecommunication sector in Cambodia." So far the coverage services of mobile phone reached up to 80 percent of the whole country, he added.
Cambodia currently has nine mobile phone operators with Mobitel, owned by a local tycoon Kith Meng of Royal Group, leading the sector and followed by Vietnam's owned Metfone, and the other seven are Hello, Mfone, Star Cell, Beeline, Smart Phone, QB, and Excell.
Due to tough competition in the sector in the last two years, Smart Mobile and Star-Cell in December last year announced their consolidation under Smart Mobile to become one of the market leaders. The official consolidation will be begun from March, 2011.
In 2010, the ministry earned 19.5 million U.S. dollars from postal sector and revenue sharing from the nine mobile phone operators, said So Khun.
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