ANRT report shows strong growth for Moroccan internet and mobile phone sectors

12/11/2006

A report by the ICT observatory of the ANRT shows the number of Moroccan internet subscribers is increasing due to lower prices for high-speed access and the amount of mobile telephone users is increasing at the expense of fixed lines.

By Adam Mahdi for Magharebia in Casablanca – 12/11/06

[Getty Images] ANRT points to lower ADSL prices as a reason for the explosion of the internet market.

The latest report by the Internet and Communications Technology (ICT) observatory of the Moroccan National Agency for Telecommunications Regulation (ANRT) showed Morocco has 358,000 internet subscribers, around 15 million mobile phones and 1,267,000 fixed-telephone lines.

The figures, published by Maroc IT, showed an explosion in internet access this year.

From September 2005 to September 2006, the internet market recorded growth of 73%. Growth of 295% has occurred since 2004.

ADSL high-speed access accounts for 98% of subscription. Around 56% of ADSL users have 256 kilobyte per second subscription, while 25% have basic 128 kilobyte per second access.

The number of ADSL subscribers has risen 89% in the last year and nearly 40% since the start of this year.

The ANRT observatory feels the boom can be explained by the price reduction for high-speed access which started in 2005 and the work to double access speeds launched by Maroc Telecom.

The prevalence of ADSL has caused leased link subscriptions to fall to 1034 in September, as compared with 1,800 in September 2004.

The number of Moroccan internet users is estimated at more than five million.

The mobile telephone market is also robust as Morocco has crossed the 15 million GSM customer mark, with a penetration rate of around 50%, an increase of 5% over the second quarter of 2005.

At the end of September, Maroc Telecom accounted for 70.45% of the market and Méditelecom for the other 29.55%. The latter lost 3% of its market share in the third quarter.

Prepaid customers continue to dominate the market as the post-paid option only accounts for 680,000 subscriptions out of the 15 million.

The amount of fixed-line telephones continue to tumble.

The ANRT observatory report shows the number of customers has gone from 1,310,000 to 1,267,000, with a penetration level of only 4.24%.

Public phones account for 158,000 of the fixed lines.

The fixed-telephone market in Morocco may revitalise next year with the arrival of Maroc Connect and Méditel on the market.