Tele2 resurgence continues as subscribers pass the three million mark

Swedish telecoms group Tele2 has confirmed that its Kazakh wireless unit has passed the three million subscriber mark, almost a year to the day since the cellco announced that it had reached the one million subscriber milestone. The latest announcement serves to emphasise the remarkable turnaround witnessed by the once-struggling mobile unit, which saw its subscriber base slump to just 217,000 in June 2010, hampered as it was by former owner Kazakhtelecom’s lackadaisical attitude towards the cellco. The fixed line incumbent already held stakes in two rival mobile operators, Altel and K’cell, and quickly distanced itself from the new market entrant when it failed to live up to expectations. Previously, in September 2011 Tele2 revealed that it expected its Kazakh subscriber base to climb to between 2.3 million and 2.5 million by end-2012, a figure it has now comfortably surpassed; the company will provide updated guidance regarding customer intake in Kazakhstan (for 2012) in its Q3 2012 report.