Nearly 80 million SIM cards in France

ARCEP published its mobile market observatory for the third quarter of 2021. More than 79.772 million SIM cards are in circulation.The number increases by 733,000 cards, after a first quarter increased (+238,000).

The Arcep published its mobile telephony observatory for the third quarter.The operators resume their rate of progression.The regulator has 79.772 million SIM cards, up 733,000 cards, including 77,577 million in circulation, up 793,000. 72.066 million cards are linked to a package, up 649,000.

In mainland France, the telecoms gendarme has 77.145 million SIM cards, up 711,000 cards, including 75.135 million in circulation, up 776,000. The increase in subscriptions (+615,000) to 70.145 million is accompanied byA small increase in prepaid cards of 96,000 cards to reach 7 million.Very dependent on prepaid cards, the MVNO (La Poste Mobile, Coriolis, Prixtel, ...), have a drop of 222,000 customers, going to 6.863 million customers.Network operators (Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange and SFR) are raising 933,000 new customers for a total of 70.282 million customers.The number portability remains stable at 1.645 million numbers brought between operators over the period.

However, changes in the MVNO market must take into account 2 modifications: in the first quarter, the figures of network operators and MVNO have evolved with the buy-back of Euro-information Telecom by Bouygues Telecom, which represents more than 2 millionsubscribers.During the third quarter, SFR recovered the 400,000 Prixtel customers and the 77,000 AFone Participations customers (Afone Mobile or Reglo Mobile from Leclerc), but remains to be seen whether the 500,000 Coriolis subscribers are included in these figures.