Poor quarter for GSM worldwide as 3G sales increase

The first quarter of 2008 was the worst period for GSM connections in almost 15 years, according to a report on Cellular-News.com. There were just 380,000 net new connections worldwide, compared with an average 10 million growth over the previous 12 months. Meanwhile 3G W-CDMA technology saw a quarterly gain of 9.1 million users, following similarly high additions of 9.24m and 10.99m in Q3 and Q4 2007 respectively. GSM’s market share has fallen from 92.0% to 87.6% in the past year. In the UK, 3G connections have now passed 10 million, although the total number of mobile customers has dropped slightly from the previous quarter.