Telecompaper
Morocco reached 23.1 million internet subscribers at the end of March, up 9.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest statistics from the regulator ANRT. This takes the internet penetration to 65.6 percent. The vast majority use mobile internet, at over 21.5 million, up 9.2 percent from a year earlier.
The expansion of 4G networks helped drive the growth in the past year, with 11 million people using LTE at the end of March, an increase of 56.7 percent year-on-year. FTTH subscribers also rose 88 percent over the 12 months, to 82,693, while nearly 1.44 million people had an ADSL connection.
The mobile telephony base was up 2.37 percent to 44.73 million at the end of March. That’s good for a penetration rate of 127 percent. Postpaid subscribers rose nearly 20 percent to 4.13 million, while prepay users were largely stable, at 40.6 million.
Maroc Telecom remained market leader with 19.3 million customers, up by around half a million from a year ago. Orange grew faster, gaining nearly 1 million customers in the past year to reach 15.6 million and nearly 35 percent of the market. Inwi’s base fell to 9.9 million from 10.3 million a year ago, equal to a share of just over 22 percent.
Mobile voice traffic reached 13.7 billion minutes during the quarter, up 7.2 percent year-on-year. That’s equal to an average 103 minutes per customer per month, up from 98 minutes a year ago. SMS traffic continued to decline, down around 20 percent to just over 1 billion messages in the quarter.
Mobile prices were largely stable, at an average 22 cents a minute, compared to 23 cents in March 2018.
