Mobile telephony penetration reaches 106.2% in second quarter of 2010

The latest telecoms’ statistics issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO) for the second quarter of 2010 have revealed that mobile penetration rate per 100 persons in the population has risen to 106.2%, indicating more than one mobile subscription per person.

2 September 2010, 12:00am
by Charlot Zahra

2 min read

n the second quarter of 2010, the NSO reported that the absolute number of mobile telephone subscriptions totalled 439,536, an increase of 5,375 over the first quarter of 2010, when mobile subscriptions totalled 434,161

Post-paid and pre-paid schemes during the second quarter of 2010 reached 82,392 and 351,769 respectively, a split of 18.75% to 81.25% for pre-paid subscriptions.

Pre-paid and post-paid subscriptions increased by 15.4% and 7.2% respectively when compared to the second quarter of 2009.

Local originating mobile traffic, outbound and inbound roaming all registered increases when compared to the corresponding period in 2009. On the other hand, a decrease was registered in mobile originating minutes to international networks.

Fixed telephony subscriptions reached a total of 246,615 at the end of June 2010, an increase of 0.6% when compared to the second quarter of a year ago, when fixed telephony subscriptions had reached 245,106.

Total fixed originating minutes to the national network amounted to around 169.1 million, a slight decrease over the comparative quarter in 2009.

Around 13.4 million minutes were directed towards an international network, with a drop of 7.2 % with respect to the previous year.

As observed in previous quarters, there has been a shift in internet subscriptions from active dial-up subscriptions to broadband subscriptions.

Year-on-year, the number of broadband users increased by 10.2%, reaching 117,503 at the end of June 2010, while the number of dial-up users during this period dropped by 86.6%, reaching only 169 at the end of June 2010.

Furthermore, as at the end of June 2010, 88.4% of broadband subscribers, that is, 103,890, had a connection speed of more than or equal to 2 Megabytes per second, but less than Megabytes per second.

During the reference period, the pay TV subscription index rose by 7.8%, reaching 143,185 at the end of June 2010.

Analogue television subscriptions registered a drop of 48.4%, reaching 19,658 subscriptions at the end of June 2010, while digital subscriptions advanced by 30.4% to stand at 123,528 subscriptions. Digital subscriptions amounted to 86.3% of the total.

However, there was a drop in postal services when compared to the second quarter of 2009. In fact, total postal traffic registered a drop of 1.4% to stand at around 10.7 million items.

Total parcels and other items were recorded at 18,131, a decrease of 13.0% when compared to quarter 2 of 2009.

Items received and dispatched by couriers amounted to 101,875, a decrease of 1.0% when compared to the corresponding quarter last year, the NSO reported.