MTN connects over 195 million customers in 22 countries, but its home operation of South Africa experienced a 1.9% decline to 24.950 million subscribers from 25.421 million in Q4 2012.
 
Despite the fall in absolute numbers, MTN managed to maintain market share in South Africa, according to MTN Group President and CEO – Sifiso Dabengwa.
 
MTN South Africa: Average price per minute (PPM) declined 5.5% compared to the same period a year earlier affecting revenue growth capability. Blended ARPU declined a huge 8.1% to R110.62 as a result of promotional activities and a decline in effective tariffs.
 
MTN claims that towards the end of the quarter, there had been some signs of improvement in both subscriber and revenue trends. Data revenue is a key focus area for MTN, and active data subscribers stood at 13.3 million, data revenue, including MTN Business and mobile data, increased approximately 15.7 percent Year-on-Year.
 
MTN Nigeria: Net Additions went up by 3.9 Mn, and increase of 8.1 percent QoQ. Market share rebounded to 49.7 percent. Data subscribers reached 22.8 Mn and Data revenue went up by 63.5 percent YoY.
 
Network roll-out progressed rapidly too, with 450 new 2G sites during the quarter compared to 211 in the same period last year, and 259 new co-located 3G sites, bringing the total number of 3G sites to 3,508.
 
MTN in other countries:
 
MTN Ghana: Subscribers went up by 2.5% QoQ, adding 290,000 subscribers. Data subscribers reached 4.1 million and data revenue increased 67.3% YoY.
 
MTN Irancell: Subscribers went up by 2.6% QoQ. Data subscribers remained stable at 10.1 million at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 58.6% YoY.
 
MTN Cameroon: Subscribers went up by by 2.6% QoQ, adding 192,000 subscribers in the period. Data subscribers reached 600,000 at the end of the quarter and data
revenue increased 42.9%  YoY.
 
MTN Ivory Coast: Subscribers went up by 5.8% QoQ, adding 354,000 subscribers, while data subscribers reached 900,000 at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 41.1% YoY.
 
MTN Uganda: Subscribers went up by 3.2% QoQ adding 248,000 subscribers. Data subscribers reached 1.2 million at the end of the quarter and data revenue increased 53.6% in YoY.
 
MTN Syria: Business faces challenging security and other issues. There were net disconnections of 364,000, a 6% decrease QoQ, with both revenue and margins coming under pressure. This is expected to continue unfortunately, according to MTN.

Source: Wireless Federation.

The Agency for Electronic Communications (AEC) has published its latest observatory of Macedonia’s telecoms markets for the period ended 31 December 2012, showing that the total number of main lines in service (PSTN and ISDN) reached 408,318 at that date, up from 407,896 three months earlier, but down 3.25% on the 422,053 lines reported at end-2011. Meanwhile the number of residential fixed line subscribers dropped by 3.44% in the year under review to 364,598 and business lines dipped 1.70% to 43,720. The total number of internet connections was 312,272, compared to 302,257 at end-September 2012 and 282,370 at the start of the year. The total number of TV subscribers reached 278,140, compared to 251,584 at the start of the year, of which 66,541 were IPTV subscribers (+65.82%).

In the mobile segment, the AEC reported a total of 2.235 million active mobile subscribers, down 2.80% from 2.299 million in September 2012, but higher than the 2.213 million figure reported at end-2011. Of these, the number of mobile broadband (2G/3G) users stood at 505,596, up 35.44% from 373,288 a year earlier; 2G narrowband users topped 260,926 (+64.73%).

Source: TeleGeography.

MIC Tanzania (Tigo), a 100% owned subsidiary of Luxembourg’s Millicom International Cellular (MIC), has extended its GSM network with the switching on of a new cell site in Kakola Kahama in the north western region of the country. In a statement, Tigo public relations officer Elias Bandeke said that the latest service expansion forms part of ongoing efforts to improve its coverage, and will soon see launches in Mwanza, Tabora, Mara and Kagara. Tigo Tanzania recently switched on a new tower in the remote area of Kasulu-Kigoma, he added.

TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that Tigo Tanzania had a total of 6.043 million mobile subscribers at the end of 2012, including an estimated 70,000 3G users, giving it a market share of 22.8%. The other layers in the market are Vodacom Tanzania, Airtel (formerly Zain), Zanzibar Telecommunication (Zantel) and the mobile arm of national PTO Tanzania Telecommunication Company Limited (TTCL).

Source: TeleGeography.

According to Macau’s Bureau of Telecommunications Regulation (DSRT), the territory’s total mobile subscriber base shrank marginally to 1.551 million at the end of March 2013, down by a net 2,000 users in a month. Nearly all subscribers are now 3G customers, with just 0.3% using 2G-only services. Macau’s active fixed voice lines also decreased in March 2013, by 500 in a month to 160,637, while the number of fixed broadband internet subscribers rose by 650 to 145,993.

Source: TeleGeography.

Source: TeleGeography.

Source: TeleGeography.

Myanmar authorities will begin selling low-cost Sim cards from 24 April. Some 350,000 Sim cards will be allocated monthly across Myanmar and sold by regional governments, not by Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), Eleven Media reports citing MPT chief engineer mobile Htay Win. The CDMA 800 MHz Sim cards will be sold for MMK 1,500 each, and customers have to use at least MMK 2,500 per month to keep the account active. If customers do not recharge within fifteen days of running the balance down to zero, the service may be terminated. The fees for outgoing calls remains the same at MMK 50 per minute. MPT has been selling CDMA Sim cards for MMK 500,000 in recent years.

Source: Telecom Paper.

• Five winning bidders to deliver future mobile competition in the UK
• 4G services from a range of operators expected within six months
• Research measuring 4G speeds to be conducted at the end of 2013

Ofcom has today announced the winners of the 4G mobile spectrum auction.

After more than 50 rounds of bidding, Everything Everywhere Ltd, Hutchison 3G UK Ltd, Niche Spectrum Ventures Ltd (a subsidiary of BT Group plc), Telefónica UK Ltd and Vodafone Ltd have all won spectrum. This is suitable for rolling out new superfast mobile broadband services to consumers and to small and large businesses across the UK¹.

The auction has achieved Ofcom’s purpose of promoting strong competition in the 4G mobile market. This is expected to lead to faster mobile broadband speeds, lower prices, greater innovation, new investment and better coverage. Almost the whole UK population will be able to receive 4G mobile services by the end of 2017 at the latest.

A total of 250 MHz of spectrum was auctioned in two separate bands – 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz. This is equivalent to two-thirds of the radio frequencies currently used by wireless devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptops.

The lower-frequency 800 MHz band is part of the ‘digital dividend’ freed up when analogue terrestrial TV was switched off, and is ideal for widespread mobile coverage. The higher-frequency 2.6 GHz band is ideal for delivering the capacity needed for faster speeds. The availability of the two will allow 4G networks to achieve widespread coverage as well as offering capacity to cope with significant demand in urban centres.

Ed Richards, Ofcom Chief Executive, said: “This is a positive outcome for competition in the UK, which will lead to faster and more widespread mobile broadband, and substantial benefits for consumers and businesses across the country. We are confident that the UK will be among the most competitive markets in the world for 4G services.

“4G coverage will extend far beyond that of existing 3G services, covering 98% of the UK population indoors – and even more when outdoors – which is good news for parts of the country currently underserved by mobile broadband.

“We also want consumers to be well informed about 4G, so we will be conducting research at the end of this year to show who is deploying services, in which areas and at what speeds. This will help consumers and businesses to choose their most suitable provider.”

Widespread 4G coverage

Ofcom has attached a coverage obligation to one of the 800 MHz lots of spectrum. The winner of this lot is Telefónica UK Ltd. This operator is obliged to provide a mobile broadband service for indoor reception to at least 98% of the UK population (expected to cover at least 99% when outdoors) and at least 95% of the population of each of the UK nations – England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales – by the end of 2017 at the latest.

Source: Ofcom.

Global mobile data traffic is forecast to increase by 66 percent CAGR or 13-fold by 2017, reaching 11.2 exabytes (1 quintillion bytes) per month, or 134 exabytes a year, according to Cisco. The company expects 46 percent of all cellular traffic to be off-loaded from fixed or Wi-Fi by 2017 (9.6 exabytes a month), compared with 33 percent (428 petabytes a month) in 2012. LTE is likely to support nearly 10 percent of all mobile connections by 2017.
 
Continued strong growth in mobile internet connections through both personal devices and M2M applications will exceed the UN’s world population estimated of 7.6 billion in 2017. Cisco explains that 134 exabytes is the equivalent of 3 trillion video clips, or one clip daily from each person on Earth over one year.

Mobile data is being driven by an increase in mobile users (5.2 bln by 2017 vs 4.3 bln in 2012), rise in mobile connections (10 bln, including 1.7 bln M2M by 2017 vs 7 bln in total in 2012), faster mobile speeds (3.9 Mbps vs 0.5Mbps), and more mobile video, expected to account for 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2017, versus 51 percent in 2012. Cisco expects M2M traffic, including car GPS, asset tracking, medical applications, etc, to account for 5 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2017.

The MEA region is expected to 77 percent CAGR mobile data growth between 2012-2017, Asia-Pacific 76 percent, Latin America 67 percent, Central and Eastern Europe 66 percent, North America 56 percent and Western Europe 50 percent.

Source: Telecom Paper.

According to the latest figures from the Communications Authority of Maldives, the island nation ended December 2012 with a total of 560,547 mobile subscribers, the majority of which (87.3%, or 489,084) were pre-paid customers. The regulator said that fixed broadband subscribers reached 18,059 at the end of 2012, while mobile broadband customers totalled 69,641. The number of fixed telephony lines (including payphones) stood at 24,153.

Source: TeleGeography.

According to data from the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA), the country’s wireless subscriber base at the end of 2012 was just under 5.7 million, up from 4.7 million just six months previously. MTN remains the market leader with a market share of 60.3%, followed by Millicom-owned Tigo with 32.8%. New entrant Airtel, which launched in June 2012 and is backed by India’s Bharti Airtel, grew its subscriber base from 144,044 in July to 391,072 by the end of the year. MTN and Tigo’s networks each reach more than 98% of the population, whereas Airtel’s population coverage currently stands at 15%.

Source: TeleGeography.

Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel reports that the country was home to a total of 261.78 million mobile connections at the end of 2012, up 8.07% (or 19.5 million new lines), from the 242.20 million reported at the end of 2011. Cellular penetration increased to 132.78 mobile lines per 100 of population over the same period, it added. Of the total, 80.53% of lines (210.82 million) were pre-paid, down from 81.8% a year earlier, while GSM continued to be the most popular access platform, accounting for 74.8% of connections, compared to 82.4% in 2011.

In terms of mobile market share, Anatel said that Vivo (owned by Spain’s Telefonica) controlled 29.08% of the segment at end-2012, ahead of TIM Brasil (26.87%), America Movil-backed Telecom Americas (Claro) with 24.95%, Oi SA in fourth with 18.81%, CTBC or Agar Telecom (0.18%), regional operator Sercomtel (0.03%) and fledgling MVNO Porto Seguro (with 8,300 accesses). For the first time NII Holdings’ Nextel Brasil unit was also ranked, having launched 3G data plans without fanfare at the end of the fourth quarter.

Alongside Anatel’s mobile market update, Brazil’s Telebrasil association released its estimate of the broadband market, reporting a total of 86 million high speed internet accesses (fixed and mobile) at end-December, up 45% year-on-year – with the strongest growth coming from mobile broadband (up 60% y-o-y). The association said that around 27 million new mobile connections were activated last year, lifting the total to 52.5 million 3G cellular accesses and 13.5 million via data terminals (including modems and M2M connections).

Finally, Brazil’s incumbent cellcos continued to roll out their 3G coverage last year, collectively reaching 3,285 municipalities, or 88% of the population, at the year’s end, up 24% (or 635 new municipalities) compared to end-2011. The deployments helped boost the total cities covered figure beyond the government’s own target dramatically; the state had set a goal of 928 cities covered with 3G networks by April 2013.

Source: TeleGeography.

Macedonia’s industry regulator the Agency for Electronic Communications (AEC) has published its latest observatory of the country’s telecoms markets for the period ended 30 September 2012. At that date the watchdog counted a total of 2.299 million active mobile subscribers, up 1.9% from 2.257 million in September 2011. Of these, the number of mobile broadband (2G/3G) users stood at 446,288, up 15.9% from 384,988 a year earlier; 2G narrowband users topped 172,787 (+63.8%). The Macedonian regulator also said that mobile phone users generated voice traffic of over 1.020 billion minutes in Q3 2012, up 17.3% y-o-y and 3.7% higher than in Q2 2012.

The total number of main lines in service (PSTN and ISDN) reached 407.896 at end-September 2012, down 1.4% year-on-year, of which business lines accounted for 43,615 (-0.02%). Meanwhile the number of residential fixed line subscribers dropped by 1.5% in the year under review to 364,281. The total number of internet connections was 302,257, compared to 271,773 at end-September 2011. IPTV subscriptions stood at 58,385, up 64.9% on an annualised basis.

Source: TeleGeography.

China’s wireless market expanded to 1.11 billion users by the end of 2012, including 233.4 million 3G subscribers according to data released by the nation’s three mobile providers, increasing from 975.7 million total and 127.5 million 3G customers at end-December 2011. China Mobile recorded 710.3 million active wireless users at the end of December 2012, of which 87.9 million were 3G users, up by 9.3% and 71.7% year-on-year respectively. China Unicom meanwhile, claimed a total of 239.3 million users (+19.6%) including 76.5 million 3G customers (+91.0%) whilst China Telecom had 69.1 million 3G customers (+90.3%) out of its 160.6 million-strong customer base (+27.0%).

Source: TeleGeography.

The Zambia government announced that five firms, including South Africa-based Vodacom, have expressed interest in the country's fourth mobile licence. Communication, transport, works and supply Minister Chris Yaluma said no decision had been made yet regarding the successful bidder and that other interested companies can still bid, ITweb reported. Zambia's telecommunication market is currently dominated by Airtel and MTN, which together have over 8.5 million subscribers. The government still needs to revoke regulations that have been blocking the introduction of a fourth mobile service provider. Yaluma said once the paperwork is done, a tender would be launched for the interested companies. He said the country could see the setting up of the fourth mobile company before the end of 2013.

Source: Telecom Paper.

The number of telephone subscribers in India fell to 921.47 in November, down by 13.70 million from October, according to figures from the Telecom Regularity Authority of India (Trai). The overall teledensity slipped to 75.55 from 76.75 a month earlier. The mobile subscriber base fell to 890.60 million from 904.23 million in the previous month, down by 1.51 percent, due to large scale disconnections of inactive subscribers by some operators. Private operators hold 88.19 percent of the mobile market share (based on subscriber base) whereas state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL hold a 11.81 percent share of the market. Meanwhile, the fixed-line subscriber base declined from 30.95 million in October to 30.87 million in November. BSNL and MTNL hold a share of 79.66 percent of the fixed-line market and private operators have a 20.34 percent share. Furthermore, the broadband subscriber base increased to 14.88 million from 14.81 million a month earlier. The top five ISPs in terms of market share (based on subscriber base) are BSNL with 9.79 million broadband customers, Bharti Airtel with 1.39 million subscribers, MTNL with 1.08 million, Hathway with 370,00, and You Broadband with 290,000 broadband customers.

Source: Telecom Paper.

Bulgaria's telecoms regulator on Friday granted the country's fourth GSM mobile phone licence to local satellite operator Bulsatcom.

Bulsatcom will now compete with three other groups - M-Tel, controlled by Telekom Austria ; Globul, the Bulgarian unit of Greek OTE and Vivacom.

"Bulsatcom won a 10-year licence to use the frequencies in the 1800 Mhz range for 19 million levs ($12.96 million) and we already received a confirmation that the amount was paid," a spokeswoman for the regulator told Reuters.

Bulsatcom, which said its GSM services would be available for customers by the end of the year, said it would not seek a big market share at this stage.

Mobile phone market penetration in Bulgaria, the European Union's poorest member, for 2011 was 147 percent. ($1 = 1.4656 Bulgarian levs) (Reporting by Angel Krasimirov. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: Reuters.

Source: TeleGeography.

India ended November with 663.77 million GSM customers, as operators jointly shed 9.02 million subscribers in the month, according to figures from the industry association Coai. Bharti Airtel lost 2.80 million subscribers in November to bring its total to 183.61 million, and the company had a market share of 27.66 percent. Vodafone India shed 2.38 million customers and ended the month with 150.76 million subscribers. Vodafone's market share stood at 22.71 percent. Idea Cellular shed 1.56 million subscribers to bring its total to 114.14 million and the operator had a market share of 17.20 percent. Meanwhile, BSNL maintained its customer base at 97.17 million and its market share totalled 14.64 percent. Aircel ended the month with a total subscriber base of 65.32 million and a market share of 9.84 percent, as the company lost 1.46 million customers. Uninor shed 437,915 subscribers to end November with 40.60 million subscribers and a market share of 6.12 percent. Videocon shed 379,787 subscribers to bring its customer base to 4.01 million and its market share stood at 0.60 percent, while MTNL lost 741 subscribers to end the month with 5.12 million subscribers. MTNL had a market share of 0.77 percent. Loop Mobile maintained its customer base at 3 million with 0.46 market share.

Source: Telecom Paper.

French watchdog the Autorite de Regulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes (Arcep) has announced a new maximum termination rate for voice calls in French overseas territories. The rate, which is effective from 1 January 2013, has been set at EUR0.01 (USD0.01) per minute and applies to operators in the Antilles-Guyane region (incorporating Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guiana) as well as Reunion and Mayotte.

Source: TeleGeography.

Chinese CDMA-based wireless provider China Telecom has introduced pre-paid vouchers for 3G services, offering customers a cheap, flexible alternative to its existing data plans, China Daily reports. The vouchers are available in denominations of 60MB, 150MB or 300MB, the smallest of which costs CNY10 (USD1.59). A spokesperson for the operator noted that data use per subscriber in October 2012 was 130% higher than twelve months earlier, adding: ‘Data traffic management is a very important task for telecom carriers, especially when they enter the mobile internet age.’

TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that whilst China Telecom has the fewest 3G subscribers of the three cellcos – with 59.72 million at the end of September 2012, compared to 66.86 million and 75.60 million held by China Unicom and China Mobile respectively at that date – it has the greatest level of 3G penetration in its customer base, with more than a third of its users on 3G plans in mid-2012.

Source: TeleGeography.

The popularity of mobile money services in the African nation of Tanzania exploded between 2010 and 2012, according to figures from the Bank of Tanzania published in East Africa Business Week. The bank reports that monthly transactions have increased from 1.9 million in 2010 to 48 million in September this year, in turn driving the total value of mobile transactions up to TZS1.7 trillion (USD668.3 million) from TZS1.8 billion. The banks’ governor Benno Ndulu told delegates at the opening of a financial institutions’ conference in Arusha that millions of Tanzanians without bank accounts are benefiting from mobile money services to make payments, send remittances and store funds for short periods conveniently and at low cost.

Last month TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate reported that Vodacom Tanzania has signed up 4.4 million users to its mobile money service M-PESA, representing around 48% of its total subscriber base in the country. The service, which allows users with a recognised ID card to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money easily through a mobile device, is seeing sustained, strong growth. In February this year Vodacom confirmed that the number of M-PESA users stood at 2.7 million users – or 23.4% of the base. The cellco’s CEO Rene Meza says: ‘about TZS35 billion is transacted daily through M-PESA and attributed this to the fact that the service is safe and reliable and is available throughout the country.’

Source: TeleGeography.