POTRAZ Telecoms sector report for the first quarter of 2020 is finally out (I say finally because we’re almost halfway into the year) and here are the highlights from the report:
- Growth in active mobile subscriptions – the number of active mobile subscriptions which increased by 4% to reach 13,724,522 from 13,195,902 recorded in the fourth quarter of 2019;
- Decline in Data and Internet subscriptions – the active internet and data subscriptions also declined by 2.5% to record 8,614,401 from 8,836,299 recorded in the previous quarter;
- Decline in voice traffic – The period under review registered a decline in total fixed voice traffic which fell by 6.9% to record 112.1 million minutes in the first quarter of 2020 from 120.35 million minutes recorded in the fourth quarter of 2019;
- Growth in Internet & Data usage – The mobile Internet and data traffic increased by 2.8% to record 6,661TB from 6,489TB recorded in the previous quarter;
- Growth in revenue along with rising operating costs across all subsectors – The period was characterised by growth in revenue generated by the mobile telephone networks which grew by 26.2% to record $2.1 billion in the first quarter of 2020 from $1.65 billion recorded in the fourth quarter of 2019. However, mobile network operating costs grew by 46.1% to record $1.4 billion from $988.2 million recorded in the previous quarter;
- Mobile Money Transactions – There was an overall decline of 5.9% and 14% in the value of cash-in and cash-out transactions respectively;
Analysis of the report will follow and those interested in downloading the full Q1 2020 telecoms sector report can do so below:
