The number of users of mobile phone services in the first quarter of this year decreased by 28,500 (-0.6%) compared with the corresponding period last year, to over 4.4 million. The volume of voice traffic diminished by 1.5% to almost 1.5 billion minutes. The sales of mobile phone services declined by 5.4% to over 749.1 million lei, IPN has learned from the ICT regulator (ANRCETI).
The negative trend is due to the change in the consumer preferences of users who choose alternative communication services through the Internet, such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp, which are free of charge.
The decline in the number of users was due to the diminution of the customer bases of Orange (-29,100) and Moldcell (- 8,000). The customer base of Moldtelecom rose by over 8,600. As a result, the mobile phone penetration rate per 100 people decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 124.8%. The average monthly mobile voice traffic per user was 262 minutes.
The sales of Moldcell fell by 8.9% to over 227.2 million lei, while of Orange to 5.2% to 481.6 million lei. The sales revenues of Moldtelecom grew by 15.8% to over 40.2 million lei.
The monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) decreased by 1.9% to 68.7 lei. Moldtelecom reported an ARPU of 83.5 lei, Orange of 72.3 lei, while Moldcell of 60.5 lei.
The market shares of the three mobile phone carriers depending on turnover didn’t change significantly. Orange continues to have the largest market share, of 64.28%. Moldcell and Moldtelecom have market shares of 30.36% and 5.36% respectively.
