90% mobile penetration!

The 90% penetration is the figure reported by operators according to the SIM cards distributed in the market. It's worth noting that 90% mobile penetration does not necessarily mean 9 of 10 people possess mobile phones. We know that certain groups of population may not bother to carry a phone. Among these, they are infants, elderly people, those who are hearing impairment, the poors, monks, etc. For example, National Statistical Office (NSO) of Thailand reported 5.8 million (out of 65 million population) are of the age under 6 years old. From my guestimate, these groups of people may be summed up to a quite considerable number. Therefore, the addressable market for mobile phone may be only 70-80% of popoulation. So... how can we reach 90% penetration.


If you're thinking about people carrying more than one phone, which is quite common in Thailand, well... it's one of the cause and you're partly right! According to the survey in 2007, NSO reported only 28 million individuals possessed mobile phones. But, only 267,548 of which carry more than one phone. Even everyone, who carries more than one phone, carries 3 or 4 phones, this just adds ~800,000+ on top of 28 million figure. The 28.8 million figure is only a half of what have been reported by the operators (58 million).

Where is another half, then?

Given that the two information are correct, the number of SIM cards in the market is about double of the number of users.

Note that majority of users in Thailand are prepaid. When a prepaid user wish to discontinue the service, s/he can simply do so without informing the operator. The operator has no way to know if the user intentionally discontinues the service or just forgets to put the money into the account. (operators wish it to be the latter case) So the operator usually 'delay' the validity of the SIM card for several months (90 days or more!) after it has been inactive. These inactive SIM cards are also counted as subscribers when reported by operators. This is, in my opinion, the main reason for the exceedingly large number of SIM cards counted in the market.

The number of mobile phone users is not that high!