Europe : "Vodafone continues to be the fastest growing global investor, adding nearly 16 million proportionate subscribers to its total worldwide subscriber base in the 12 months between September 2002 and September 2003, according to the new edition of EMC's World Cellular Investors datasheet," says Liz Hall, Senior Research Analyst, EMC.

China Unicom led the way as the fastest growing operator during the same period, attracting a staggering 27.3 million subscribers (Sept 02 - Sept 03). This compares to 20.6 million by domestic rival China Mobile.

America Movil was the second fastest growing mobile operator in the world, after China Unicom, in terms of % subscriber growth in the twelve-month period between September 2002 and September 2003. The Mexico-based operator managed to increase its total proportionate subscriber base by nearly 27% from 28.96 million at the end of September 2002 to 36.69 million at the end of September 2003.