DUSHANBE, February 20, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- A company, J’son & Partners, which offers analytical materials on cellular market, expects the overall number of mobile phone subscribers in Central Asia to increase to 43 million this year, covering 65 percent of the region population.

By the end of 2008, total subscriber base of cellular operators in Central Asia has included 35 million sold SIM cards and the cellular market penetration level has passed 53 percent.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan currently stand in the first places among the Central Asian states in terms of the number of sold SIM cards – 15 million and 12.6 million respectively, while Turkmenistan with 1 million sold SIM cards has been put at the bottom of the list.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan now account for 79 percent of the Central Asian total subscriber base.

By the end of 2008, 21 cellular operators have functioned in the region, providing cellular communication services in different standards: 14 of them are licensed to provide services in GSM standard; seven in CDMA standard; and one in DAMPS standard.

Last year, the volume of cellular communications incomes in the Central Asia region reached 3.6 billion US dollars.