The Malta Communication Authority has posted a report on telecoms market for the time period of July to December. According to the report the mobile sector of the country has experienced a swift growth during 2008. The Q4'08 saw coming of two new mobile operators, Bay Mobile and Redtouch fone, both of which operated on Vodafonefs infrastructure.
Melita Mobile also installed its own mobile infrastructure thereby creating more infrastructure-based competition in the mobile sector later in 2009.
The mobile subscriber base reached 385,636 by 2008-end, up by 3.8%. The postpaid subscriber base attributed to 13.6% of the total mobile subscriber base whereas the prepaid segment held 86.37% of the total base.
The mobile penetration in the country reached 94% at the end of 2008, up by 4% since a year earlier. During the last 6 months of 2008, over 23,000 subscribers changed operator, compared with 22,325 in the same period of 2007.
The mobile originating traffic grew by 8.3% whereas SMS traffic dropped from 264.21 million SMS in H2'07 to 241.53 SMS in H2'08, driven by promotional offers featuring free minute bundles.
Source: Wireless Federation.