KARACHI - Cellular segment growth slowed down considerably in August-08 while Wireless Local Loop (WLL) after three months managed to increase subscribers in same period. According to the subscriber date released by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for August-08, the cellular and WLL teledensities recorded at 55.6% and 1.4% respectively. As of June-08, fixed teledensity stood at 2.8%. Cellular teledensity has gone down by 2bps Month on Month basis to 55.60 per cent in August-08. However, in absolute terms, the subscriber base for Cellular Mobile Telecom Operators (CMTOs) increased by 30bps MoM, rising to 89.6 million. On an average, increase in subscribers for the last 12 months has been 2.0 million MoM; this month's addition alone is 82 per cent lower than that of July's. As expected, the cellular subscribers are increasing at a decelerating rate; even after taking into account the duplicity of SIMs as well as inactive SIMs, the cellular subscriber base is fast approaching the saturation point. Zong outperformed all CMTOs with a monthly addition of 357k subscribers. Thus it saw a commendable 8 per cent Month on Month basis increase in its subscriber base, which now stands at 4.8mn. Zong had a 47% share in the subscriber additions, followed by Ufone 31 per cet Warid 22 per cent. This also took Zong's market share to 5.4 per cent (+40bps MoM). Ufone and Telenor were second in line, with an addition of 232k and 170k subscribers respectively. The churn rate for this month is expected to have been at its peak, as the increase in subscribers of these 3 CMTOs is complemented by attrition in subscriber base of Mobilink, Instaphone and Warid. For the first time ever, Mobilink witnessed a decline in subscriber base of a substantial 1.5% MoM (478k), thus taking its market share further down by 60bps to 35.3 per cent. The abrupt fall in Mobilink's subscribers can also be attributed to the change in churn rule applied by Mobilink since 2QFY08; this was done in consistency with other Orascom Telecom subsidiaries, to reflect subscriber numbers more accurately. Under this rule, a SIM that is even inactive for 3 months is now scratched off the subscriber base; this period previously ranged between 6-12 months. Thus, the impact of the inactive subscribers from the last churn regime could also be deflating the subscriber numbers now. Instaphone and Telenor subscribers also fell by 30k and 13k respectively. Overall, Mobilink is still the market leader with 35.3% market share, followed by Ufone 20.8 per cent, Telenor 20.5 per cent, Warid 17.8 per cent, Zong 5.4 per cent and Instaphone 0.4 per cent. The fact that the increase in subscribers of one CMTO is accompanied with a fall in another reinforces the view that increase in the size of the pie is now slowing down. After 3 months of a persistent declining trend, PTCL finally managed to register a positive change in WLL subscriber base by adding 12.8k subscribers in Aug-08, thus having a share of 38% in the monthly additions. Falling from a peak of 64% in FY06, the incumbent's market share in the WLL segment now stands at 50.6%. This is followed by Telecard (23.7%), WorldCall (22.6%), with minimal shares of Great Bear, Wateen and Burraq. Great Bear and Wateen subscribers fell by 3k and 2k respectively, while those of Telecard and WorldCall increased by 11k and 9k respectively. Total WLL subscribers now amount to 2.35mn (PTCL: 1.14mn), with a teledensity.