Moldova's fixed telephony services market maintains tendency of decrease in turnover, number of subscribers

Chisinau, 5 December /MOLDPRES/ - The turnover on the fixed telephony services market decreased by 20.4 per cent to 422.2 million lei in the first nine months of 2018, against the same period of the year before; this is a pace of drop similar to the one recorded in 2017, the National Agency for Regulation in Electronic Communication and Information Technology (ANRCETI) has reported.    

The number of users of fixed telephony amounted to more than 1.1 billion, down by 2.3 per cent against late 2017. This is the third year in a row when the market maintains tendencies of decrease in incomes and the number of subscribers. The tendency of drop of incomes from the sale of fixed telephony services was maintained in the years 2009-2014, against the background of a diminution of the number of subscribers and the voice traffic, followed by an insignificant increase in 2015 and a sharp decrease in 2016.     

ANRCETI’s data shows that, in the first nine months of 2018, the voice traffic generated by the users of the concerned service dropped by 15.8 per cent against the same period of the last year and amounted to 1.01 billion minutes. The rate of penetration of the fixed telephony services for 100 residents dropped by 0.7 percentage points and stood at 31.5 per cent.   

According to the data reported to ANRCETI by the providers of fixed telephony services, in the first nine months of 2018, the diminution of the total number of subscribers was caused by the decrease of the basis of Moldtelecom subscribers by 1.9 per cent to 998.5 thousand. At the same time, the cumulative number of subscribers of those 22 alternative providers dropped by five per cent and amounted to 119.3 thousand.    

The situation from 30 September 2018 shows that 23 providers were acting on the fixed telephony services market. The highest quota on market, in terms of revenues, - of 95.6 per cent, was held by Moldtelecom and the cumulative share of the other fixed telephony providers stood at 4.4 per cent.