2006 could be record year for Australian cellphone sales

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 22 August 2006 07:04

IT Industry - Strategy

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), which tracks volumes on a monthly basis,  reported that 826,292 units were shipped in June, the fourth highest month on record.

Sales in July were down slightly to 809,634, but the year to date total of 4,737,801 is still the largest ever, ahead of 2004 at 4,353,724 and 2005 at 4,104,779. End of year totals for 2004 and 2005 were 8,021,724 and 8,008,41 respecively.

AMTA does not breakdown sales between GSM and 3G handsets, only between CDMA and GSM/3G. But according to CEO, Chris Althaus, retailers are reporting that a driver of the high shipments of new handsets was the increasing number of customers, existing and new, who were purchasing 3G handsets and 3G plans.

He claimed that the mobile phone market in Australia was at a tipping point in the upgrade from second-generation technology to third-generation technology. “Australians love music and sport and downloading and browsing this content on 3G handsets is proving very popular...The subscriber base is growing as some people are buying second handsets, maybe one for work and another for the weekend, and the generation Y is continually updating handsets to keep up with the latest look and style."

It is estimated that there are almost 19 million mobile phone subscribers in around 94 percent.