10Meters News Service

November 29, 2001 – Morgan Stanley Dean Witter cut its estimate on wireless subscriber growth in the U.S. Wednesday by 4 million for 2001, but maintained that the sector will continue to see growth overall.

Year-end figures from MSDW: 131 million subscribers, rather than the previous estimate of 135 million.

MSDW still expects subscriber base to rise 19 percent in 2001 and says revenues should be up 24 percent from a year ago, according to Reuters.

"These are solid figures when we consider all the difficulties the country faced during 2001. Some 21 million new users were the main reason behind this strong performance," wireless analyst Luiz Carvalho said in a research note.

Carvalho said that the percentage of the U.S. population with wireless phones should reach 45.9 percent by the end of 2001, 52.9 percent by 2002 and 58.7 percent in 2003.