According to Informa Telecoms & Media prepaid subscriptions worldwide passed the 1.5bn milestone at the beginning of July 2006, as mobile subscriptions worldwide approach the 2.5bn mark. Latest research from Informa's World Cellular Information Service (WCIS) reports the share of prepaid subscriptions increasing to an estimated 61.8% of total subscriptions, up from 58.6% at the end of June 2005.

Abigail Browne, senior analyst on WCIS said, "The last half billion prepaid subscriptions have been gained by mobile operators in less than 17 months since February 2005, nearly twice as fast as the 29 months it took them to add the previous half billion. In the year to June 2006 more than 75% of mobile net additions worldwide were prepaid".

While the proportion of prepaid users is expected to continue to rise, prepaid growth is forecast to slow in coming years, in line with a general slowdown in mobile subscription growth, and the 2bn prepaid milestone is forecast to be reached only in mid-2008. Following a period of decline for prepaid in some markets in Western Europe, the region that led the prepaid boom in 2000, the service is enjoying a mini revival in Germany, spurred by the success of new discount providers targeting this segment. The prepaid share of subscriptions in Western Europe as a whole has now levelled out at 60%, more or less in line with the global average.

In some major developed markets where prepaid has historically been strong, such as Spain and Italy, the prepaid share is declining as  operators migrate users onto contracts in order to boost ARPU.  In North America, however, where historically prepaid services have accounted for less than 10% of the market, the prepaid business is  on the rise, encouraged in particular by the popularity of MVNOs  targeting this segment. In Africa, the share of prepaid subscriptions as a proportion of total subscriptions is still rising in all markets, as people that can afford contract services have mostly already signed up for them, while there remains a large untapped market for prepaid services.
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