Figures compiled by Informa Telecoms & Media, a London-based telecoms industry consultancy, show the number of net new mobile phone subscribers fell sharply in Q4 2008 and growth of mobile data revenue has stalled for the first time.

A sharp drop in sales of data revenue in particular currently worries the manufacturing industry. Mostly network operators, especially in Western Europe and North America markets are expanding revenue from data services such as Internet and multimedia downloads to offset flat or declining revenues from traditional voice traffic.

Figures from Informa Telecoms reveal the total number of new users for mobile phone services fell by 15% to 162 million in Q4 2008. There were 4 billion active mobile phone users around the globe.

Global recession is the main factor for the market slowdown with some of the world’s fastest growing markets, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines having been hit particularly hard, whilst growth also slowed in Europe, North America and Latin America. The Asia-Pacific region meanwhile recorded the lowest drop across all seven quarters of 21%.

Nick Jotischky, Informa’s principal analyst says: “We’ve taken into account the impact of market saturation and the recent restructuring of the world’s largest mobile market, China which has led to a temporary slowdown in growth.”

Many operators in Germany, UK and Italy are experiencing a slowdown in non-voice revenue growth, while in parts of Asia-Pacific network operators are reporting customers spending less on data than voice calls.

In spite of the current economic scenario, Vodafone is still looking to expand through acquisitions whenever the opportunity arises. Vodafone is preparing itself for a battle with Spanish arch rival Telefonica over German Internet provider HanseNet, which has 2.3 million users.