At the end of the 3rd quarter of 2006 there were 11,926 million Mobile Telephone Service subscribers, a 1.6% increase in the total number of subscribers compared to the previous quarter and a 7.1% one compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The service's penetration rate stood at 112.8% in this period.
Prepaid card holders stood for 80.2% of all subscribers. Subscription plans mostly contributed to this service's growth during this quarter and in the last 12 months.
Mobile Telephone Service subscribers made about 1,7 billion calls between July and September, 4% more that in the previous quarter. Highlight should be given to the growth in traffic to international networks, which increased 42.6%. Historically, international traffic reaches its peak in the summer months.
In the same period, MTS subscribers received about 1,7 billions calls, a figure that stands for a 3.4% increase on the previous quarter.
Fixed-to-mobile calls had negative variations of 1.8% regarding the previous quarter and of 8.2% vis-à-vis the same period of the previous year.
The amount of conversation minutes on mobile networks increased 5.0% in the quarter, reaching more than 3,2 billion minutes. Versus the same period of the previous year, the amount of minutes grew 7.3%.
It was traffic to international networks that had the greatest increase, also in the case of minutes: 23% on the previous quarter and 9.2% on the same period of the previous year.
The amount of minutes terminated in mobile networks reached about 3,3 billion minutes, which stands for a 4.4% increase on the previous year and a year-to-date variation of 6.5%.
Regarding the previous quarter, the amount of fixed-to-mobile minutes had a 1.2% increase, while compared to the same quarter of the previous year it had a 5.7% decrease.
In this quarter, the average duration of originated calls reached 114 seconds. In the case of terminated calls, the average duration was 108 seconds.
International calls still have the highest average duration: 137 seconds for calls originated in mobile networks, and 164 seconds for calls terminated therein.
In the third quarter, MTS subscribers made about 47 monthly calls, on average, 31 of which were made within their operator's own network.
There was again a very considerable increase in the number of written messages sent, 8.3%, totalling over 3,351 billion written messages, regarding the previous quarter. Year-to-date growth was 110.7% due to the service's customers joining several promotional campaigns of the mobile operators.
The average number of sent messages by subscriber reached 94.
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