The National Communication Authority (NCA) has reported that growth in the mobile phone subscription rate increased by 3.3 percent over the month of July to reach a little over 24.4 million at the end of August.
The figure brings the mobile phone penetration rate to 99 percent, which statistically shows that only 219,840 out of the 24.6 million Ghanaian population have no access to a mobile phone.
This development further affirms industry players? fears that the country?s voice telephony market is fast reaching a saturation point, with opportunities now being in the data market.
This is especially so as new market entrant Glo has made inroads by attracting close to two million to the network, which is expected to further deepen competition and impact negatively on the operators Average Revenue per User.
And with the SMS revenue of operators being hit by regulatory requirements concerning their text and win promotions, the profit margin of telecom operators will continue to decline until they focus their strategies on capturing the data market which has a low level of penetration.
Concerns are however rife that the mobile network operators are pushing for subscriber growth to the detriment of service-quality.
The Director of Special Projects of the NCA, Major (Rtd) Emmanuel Owusu-Adansi, recently said that the regulator was concerned with network operators? resolve to expand their subscriber base without adhering strictly to the quality of service standards set by the regulator.
He said: ?Despite the significant subscriber growth achieved by mobile network operators in the country, there is a serious problem with the quality of service.
?As complaints increase, we will have to exert pressure on operators to live up to expectations.?
Currently, there are six mobile operators in the country who are all competing for significant market share in a market of about 25 million people.
According to the latest NCA figures, MTN controls 45 percent of the mobile telephony market with a subscriber base of a little over 11 million subscribers to cement the company?s place as the leading mobile network operator in the country. .
Vodafone?s subscriber base increased to 4.9 million, which represent 20 percent of total market share.
Tigo had a marginal subscriber base decrease, closing at 3.68 million which represents 15 percent of the market; meanwhile, Airtel increased its subscriber base to three million representing 12 percent of the total market share.
GLO continues to increase its subscriber base; its current subscriber base of 1.6 million represents seven percent of the total market share.
Expresso, though, decreased its subscriber base to 178,799. The figure represents one percent of the total market share.
By Evans Boah-Mensah
