Vodafone, two others close year poorly; Drop market share, subscriber base
Vodafone and two other mobile telecommunication (telecom, telcos) operators, Airtel and Expresso, suffered declines in their subscriber base and market share, closing the year 2014 on a disappointing note.
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This comes at a time when competition within the industry continued to heighten in the year under review.
While some of the companies spent money to improve their network quality to give their subscribers better customer experience, others invested in marketing and public relations leaving their network to deteriorate.
Losers
According to the latest figures released by the industry regulator, National Communications Authority (NCA), Vodafone’s subscriber base decreased from 7,137,501 in November to 7,069,516 in December last year.
This represents 0.95 per cent loss which also affected the company’s overall market share which dipped to 23.29 per cent in December 2014 from 23.62 per cent the previous month.
Airtel, which is the third biggest mobile company per subscribers, also witnessed a decline in its subscriber base to 3,735,656 in December from 3,756,656 in November.
The company’s drop represents a decrease of 0.55 per cent.
The impact of the drop in subscriber base also impacted Airtel’s market share which decreased from 12.43 per cent.
Expresso, which has had major challenges retaining its market, ended the month of December with a subscriber base of 119,059, down from the previous month’s figure of 120,667.
This represented a market share of 0.39 per cent.
Gainers
While Vodafone and the two others suffered a big blow during the period under review, MTN’s subscriber base increased marginally from 13,666,766 in November, 2014 to close the year with 13,852,398.
The increase, though marginal, represents 1.35 per cent. The good fortune also impacted positively on the country’s biggest and most profitable mobile telecom network as its market share increased to 45.63 per cent from 45.23 per cent in November.
Relatedly, tiGO’s subscriber base increased to 4,133,760 in December, 2014 from 4,100,172 the previous month.
That represents an increase of 0.81 per cent. For the same period, tiGO’s market share increased from 13.57 per cent in November to 13.62 per cent in December.
After months of decline, Glo managed to turn its fortunes around slightly to end the year under review on a positive note.
The company with Nigerian origin saw its market share increase from 4.76 per cent in November to 4.78 per cent after its subscriber base also recorded a rise to 1,450,382 in December from 1,437,400 in November.
This represents an increase of 0.9 per cent.
Expert views
A Technology Consultant, Mr Maximus Amertogoh, told the Daily Graphic that the new trend in the telecom industry was software applications (Apps) applications and urged the telcos to reconsider their activities and spending parterns to be abreast of the times.
“Depending on hardware and the heavy investments in marketing is not the way to go particularly in a competitive market such as what pertains in Ghana”, he said.
Mr Amertogoh, who is also a Digital Marketing Strategist, Social Media Expert and Trainer, said, for instance, now that more people were using smartphones, there was the need for the telcos to invest in the development of local applications for their customers, adding that “they need to acquire start-up companies which are into Apps development, to come up with applications that are local and meet the needs of the people and they will be surprised it will be a new revenue generation stream for them to survive the turbulence”.
Other experts argued that with the present nature of competition within the industry, there was the need for mobile operators to invest more in network expansion to improve their service quality.
According to them, investments in marketing, among other things, though necessary, was secondary because customers would not experience quality service if no funds are sank into improving their customer experience.
“Some of them spend too much on marketing and public relations (PR) work, thinking that they can win the customers to their side but they forget that if they make noise and the customers do not experience the quality service as promised, they will lose hope and the market share of those companies will dip,” one industry watcher said.
Total penetration
During the period under review, Ghana’s mobile voice subscriber base grew by 0.47 per cent to end December with 30,360,771 from 30,219,162 in November 2014.
As a result, the country’s mobile penetration rate now stands at 113.37 per cent.