KARACHI-The cellular subscriptions witnessed a nominal growth of 0.7 per cent on month on month basis in September-08. The increase of 0.64 million subscribers this month is 68 per cent lower on Year on Year basis, average increase for the last year alone has been 1.8mn subscribers each month. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday reported that with the limited additions in September 2008, the total cellular subscriber base in the country has reached to 90.2mn, while cellular mobile density now stands at 55.9 per cent as of Sep-08. Analysts said that the cellular industry was now consistently showing signs of slowdown mainly due to an economic slowdown, incentive given by cellular operators on reactivation of unused SIMs, which discouraged new connections along with cancellation of SIMs by PTA for those subscribers who have not provided necessary documentation such as Identity cards. According to the latest figures released by PTA, the Mobilink has been the only company registering a decline of 0.21mn in subscriber base, while others have all been in the green zone this month. Zong has had the highest share of 45 per cent in monthly additions, followed by Warid share of 33 per cent and Ufone share of 31 per cent. Moreover, New subscriptions during first quarter of FY09 (July-Sep) have witnessed a fall of 68 per cent from 6.8mn to only 2.2mn in first quarter of FY08. Mobilink has borne the brunt of this slowdown in subscriber with its subscriber base declining by 2 per cent in 1QFY09 resulting in market share falling to 34.8 per cent from 35.5 per cent in June 2008. In contrast, Zong, Ufone, Warid and Telenor have continued to make limited progress, with increase of 1.1mn, 700k, 669k and 346k subscribers, respectively in 1QFY09. However, there has been no change in the market share based standings of major players, whereby Mobilink continues to occupy the top slot with a market share of 34.8 per cent, followed by Ufone 20.8 per cent, Telenor 20.5 per cent, Warid 17.9 per cent and Zong 5.6 per cent. Analysts said that because of an imminent saturation in the cellular market and cancellation of inactive SIMs by PTA, They believe that cellular growth rate shall continue to see a decelerating trend going forward. Commenting on the new move of PTA in which the regulator has introduced a system, which requires the thorough verification of the consumers' data from National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) for activation of new connections analysts said that it would further hurt the already slow down in the new cellular subscription rate.