Downward trend in sales on mobile phone market maintained in first quarter of 2018

Chisinau, 23 May /MOLDPRES/- The downward trend in sales on the mobile phone market was maintained in the first quarter of 2018, given the number of users and voice traffic diminished. The sales volume of mobile telephony services dropped by 5.4 per cent to 749 million lei in the first three months of this year, according to data by the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI).

The market followed the trend of 2017 when sales fell by 4.7 per cent after the 2016 decline when sales fell sharply.

According to the ANRCETI press service, the number of mobile phone users dropped by 0.6 per cent, and the volume of voice traffic decreased by 1.5 per cent.

The decrease in the total number of users of mobile telephony services was due to the decrease in the number of customers of Orange Moldova company by 29.1 thousand and Moldcell company by 8 thousand, respectively. On the other hand, Moldtelecom company attracted 8.6 thousand new users.

ANRCETI experts explain the negative trend of the main indicators of the mobile telephony market by changing consumer preferences of the users of such telephony services to alternative Internet communication services – OTT applications: Skype, Viber, WhatsApp etc. – which are cheaper or free of charge.

Over 124 SIM cards are on average per 100 residents of Moldova, purchased from mobile phone providers , which means that some users have two or more cards. At the end of the first quarter of 2018, the market shares of the three mobile service providers, depending on turnover, did not suffer any significant changes. The Orange Moldova company continues to hold the most important market share – 64.28 per cent and Moldcell and Moldtelecom – 30.36 per cent and 5.36 per cent respectively.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor L. Alcază)