Sales of mobile phone services in the first three months of this year continued to decline amid a significant increase in the number of users and volume of voice traffic generated by these. The aggregate data of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology show that the number of users of mobile phone services in the first quarter of this year rose by over 7,000 or 0.2% compared with the corresponding period last year, IPN reports.

According to the data presented by the three mobile phone carriers - Orange Moldova, Moldcell and Unite – the decline in the growth rate of the volume of voice traffic in the mobile phone networks was caused by the diminution witnessed by Moldcell.

The volume of traffic in the network of Moldcell decreased by 3.4% compared with the first three months of last year. The voice traffic in the networks of Orange Moldova and Unite grew in volume by 2.7% and, respectively, 2.6%. Consequently, the monthly average traffic per user remained at the same level as in 2016.

Sales declined by over 35.6 million lei or 4.3% compared with the first quarter of last year. The sales of Orange decreased by 6.8%, while of Unite rose by 2.7%. The sales of Moldcell remained practically at the same level as in 2016. The monthly average revenue per user fell by 6.1%.

The mobile phone penetration rate went up by 0.2%. 100 people in Moldova have by 124 SIM cards on average.