Expresso loses over 11,000 subscribers in 1 month

Expresso, one of Ghana’s six mobile telecommunications operators, has lost 10,828 mobile voice subscribers and 1,024 mobile data subscribers between the period of April and May 2014.

According to National Communications Authority’s (NCA’s) market share figures for the month of May, Expresso’s mobile voice subscription fell from 154,207 in April to 143,379 in May 2014. The telecoms firm can now only boast of a 0.49% market share in the mobile voice market.

This fall in subscription however is better than the 15,271 subscribers the operator lost between January and February 2014. Expresso’s mobile subscriber base fell sharply from 168,998 in January 2014 to 153,727 in February 2014.

Again, the mobile operator’s market share for mobile data dipped from 43,616 in April 2014 to 42,582 in May 2014. But this is also better than the 18,420 subscriber loss it suffered from February 2014’s 50,551 subscriber base to what it recorded in March this year of 32,131.

MTN Ghana however maintained its lead as both the country’s biggest mobile voice and mobile data service provider. The telecoms company gained 177,274 more subscribers between April and May 2014 to have a total mobile voice subscriber base of 13,304,158 or 45.72% market share in May 2014.

With regards to mobile data, despite losing 1,102,167 subscribers from April 2014’s 7,986,231 to May 2014’s 6,884,064 subscribers base, MTN still managed over 50% of the mobile data market share.

Vodafone Ghana now has a total mobile voice market share of 23.13% after a subscriber boost of 87,730 from April’s 6,644,825 to the 6,732,555 it recorded in May this year. The operator also recorded a 139,614 monthly growth in mobile data subscriber base. Vodafone as at May 2014 had 2,412,479, making it both Ghana’s second largest mobile voice and mobile data service provider.

Tigo was number three with a total market share of 4,042,554 or 13.89% of the mobile voice subscribers while Airtel Ghana followed closely at number four with 3,504,858 or 12.04% of subscribers at the end of May 2014.

However, with mobile data subscription, the two telcos flipped positions as Airtel took the third spot with 2,004,810 subscribers and Tigo followed with 1,824,985 in May 2014. Both, nonetheless, enjoyed considerable growths from their April figures.

Glo, which now has a mobile voice market share of 4.72%, recorded a 1,374,263-subscriber base in May 2014 – an improvement of over 1,000 subscribers as compared to what it recorded in April. It conversely lost over 1,000 mobile data subscribers from April’s 261,530 to the 260,479 recorded in May.

In all, total mobile voice subscription grew by 1% or 287,283 from 28,814,484 in April to 29,101,767 in May 2014 while mobile data subscription plunged by 3.24% from 14,254,407 in April to 13,429,399 in May 2014 to record a 50.85% penetration.