Western Europe feels cold wind of downturn

The Western Europe mobile phone market stopped growing the third quarter of 2008 as consumer spending was hit by the economic downturn. Mobile voice revenues had already fallen by 1 per cent over the previous eighteen months but this figure increased to 3 per cent in the third quarter, according to a report from Strategy Analytics.

The good news was that mobile data revenues increased globally by 20 per cent in the third quarter and this has helped to maintain service revenues. However, says Phil Kendall, director of Strategy Analytics' Global Wireless Practice, comments "even these (mobile data revenues) could not save the European market last quarter from service revenue growth coming to an abrupt halt."

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