Digicel logs GSM gains

Caribbean mobile operator Digicel holds a 56% share of the Barbados GSM market, beating out incumbent Cable & Wireless Barbados (C&WB), local paper the Barbados Advocate reported. C&WB was said to have only 36% of the GSM market, while third competitor AT&T holds 8%. Although C&WB appears to be losing the GSM race, it still leads in overall subscribers because it is the only operator with a pre-existing network, in this case TDMA. Digicel officers have predicted the company has between 50,000 and 60,000 subscribers. Neither AT&T nor C&WJ have revealed GSM subscriber numbers, but most agree that the market has expanded overall since competition was allowed in 2003. "Definitely the market has expanded. You go back to last January, February before the launch, when penetration levels in the market place were maybe 40% or 45% - they have grown to 60%. That nets out at an additional 60,000 or 70,000 subscribers, so I think what you are seeing is very rapid initial growth," Digicel CEO Donald O'Shaughnessy was reported as saying. A UN development program report placed the number of mobile subscribers in Barbados at around 97,000 at the end of 2002 out of a population of 270,000. "I think Barbados will end up very much at European levels in time to come. Another three or four years, we will end up with 80% penetration," O'Shaugnessy said.