Middle East: connections pass 100 million as growth surges

As a region, the Middle East has enjoyed a surge in growth in its cellular markets over the last two years, with the annual growth rate rising to 37% over the last few quarters. It passed through the 100 million connections threshold during Q1 2006. The market penetration has risen from 10% in 2001 to 35% today. It is a very diverse region with a mixture of very large and very small countries, as well as a mix of mature and developing cellular markets. We expect the high growth rates to continue as some of the larger, but less well-developed cellular markets, including Iran and Iraq, move into their high growth phase.