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By editorial@silicon.com, 17 April 2001 18:00

NEWS According to research conducted by the Gartner Group, 63 per cent of adults in the UK use mobile phones, rather than the 86 per cent figure quoted by the industry. Of the type of phones that operators reported as 'connected', 15 per cent were no longer in use. A spokesman for Orange said: "Orange has always been conservative in stating figures for its customer base." However, Orange still emerged as the number one operator in terms of adult subscribers. According to Gartner, it has 8.26 million such users, compared with Vodafone's 8.19 million and BT Cellnet's 7.44 million. Vodafone is often touted as the UKs' leading mobile operator in terms of subscriber numbers. There are wide disparities in the standards used for reporting active connection numbers in the mobile industry. Orange recently adopted a policy of discounting phones from their figures after three months of inactivity. The research is timely, as mobile operators are moving into a new phase, seeking increased profitability through concentrating more heavily on the 'quality' of their customers, rather than the quantity. According to Simon Buckingham, an industry analyst at Mobile Lifestreams, subscriber information becomes increasingly critical as the mobile phone market matures. He said: "Most mobile-phones that people buy in the future will be replacement phones, not new-customer purchases. The quality of data on active subscribers will become crucial." Buckingham also called on mobile operators to work out a standard way of measuring subscribers. He said: "It's essential that all the mobile operators settle on a common standard for how to report these figures. The GSM Association may be a key forum for producing this." Ironically, the reduced figures suggested by Gartner could prove good news for the mobile industry. If the number of active subscribers is lower than reported, the average revenue per subscriber is higher. This has strong implications for the potential profitability of the sector. Gartner interviewed over 4,000 people in December 2000.