The total cellular/mobile voice subscriber base in Ghana as at August, 2012 stood at 24,438,983, which is 98% of the Ghanaian population estimated at 25million, according to the National Communication Authority (NCA).
But this does not necessarily mean over 24 million Ghanaians have mobile phone lines, because some individuals have more than one mobile line, while others do not have.
Moreover, even though all the telcos claim the figures they report to the NCA represent active subscriptions within the 90-day reporting period, in reality not all the SIM cards are active.
Market leader MTN continued in the lead crossing the 11millionth mark to reach 11,017,581, representing a 45% market share.
This means MTN increased subscribers but lost 0.8% market share from 45.8% in July to 45% in August.
But MTN is well on its way to achieve the 95,000 additional subscribers targeted for this year. The August figures show it has added 768,053 subscribers since the beginning of the year, which is more than 75% of the 950,000 with September – December figures yet to be reported.
Vodafone made a u-turn in August from a subscriber base decline of 61,428 between June and July to an increase of 143,283 to reach 4,901,555 in August. This is more than twice what it lost in July, and brings Vodafone’s market share to 20%.
On the contrary, Tigo, which had made a turnaround in June and July, from its eight months decline, recorded a marginal decline in August, contrary to projections by its General Manager, Adil El Youssefi in an exclusive interview with Adom News recently.
Youssefi had confidently stated that he and his team had figured out what the challenges at Tigo were and what needed to be done to fix them, so Ghanaians could expect “another turnaround in August”.
But the NCA figures show Tigo recorded a marginal loss from 3.699million subscribers in July to 3.685million in August, which represents 15% market share, a loss of 0.6% market share from July.
Airtel increased its subscriber base to 3,042,409 representing 12% of the total market share, while Glo also continued to show strength, increasing from 1.15million in July to 1.6 million subscribers in August, representing 7% market share in just four months of commercial operations in Ghana.
Expresso also continued its decline and reached 178,799, which represents 0.7% market share.
Meanwhile, fixed line subscriptions continued to decline, reaching 270,761 in August, from over 289,000 in February this year. Vodafone is the runaway leader in fixed line operations with over 260,000 lines, while Airtel keeps a little over 10,000 lines.