North African telcos will switch their focus from their number of customers to their share of revenues in 2010 as the six Arabic-speaking markets in Africa become increasingly saturated, say telecoms analysts.
The average level of mobile phone…
North African telcos will switch their focus from their number of customers to their share of revenues in 2010 as the six Arabic-speaking markets in Africa become increasingly saturated, say telecoms analysts.
The average level of mobile phone penetration in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia passed 80% for the first time during the final three months of 2009.
The major operators in these markets can maintain their rapid growth rates over the last five years if they move aggressively to sell mobile broadband subscriptions.
“As most markets mature and move closer to saturation, mobile operators will rapidly have to focus on value share rather than customer share,” says Joss Gillet, a senior analyst at Wireless Intelligence, the data gathering arm of the GSM Association.
Mobile broadband penetration remains tiny in every North African country. Maroc Telecom and Méditel, the two largest operators in Morocco, reported 480% and 179% growth in mobile broadband subscriptions in 2009 as Moroccans finally began to embrace high-speed internet connections.
Algeria, Libya and Tunisia have the most highly penetrated mobile phone markets in North Africa. Libya had the highest penetration of 162% at the end of last year, although its figures are unaudited and impossible to verify.
Algeria and Tunisia had penetration rates of 90% and 96% respectively.
Egypt and Morocco both had penetration rates of 75%, although this disguises major differences between the two markets. The number of people with mobile phones in Egypt increased by 30% in 2009, almost three times the rate of growth in Morocco.
Sudan had a penetration rate of 41%. Despite the instability in the south and west of the country, Sudan has proven a profitable market for its largest operator, Zain Sudan.
“Zain Sudan has avoided many of the problems afflicting the group elsewhere in the region,” says Gillet. “Sudan represented 10% of Zain’s total connections and 12% of group revenues in the third quarter of 2009.”
