One in two Nepalis have access to mobile phone service
KATHMANDU, JAN 31 -
One in two Nepalis now has access to mobile phone service. According to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), cell phone penetration has reached more than 50 percent of the population. The number of cell phone subscribers reached 13.35 million as of mid-December last year.
A preliminary report of the National Population Census 2011 stated that the country’s total population has reached 26.62 million. Based on this figure, the number of Nepalis with access to wireless telecom service (GSM and CDMA) provided by Nepal Telecom (NT) and Ncell has reached 50.16 percent.
The number of NT’s mobile subscribers has reached 6.5 million, and Ncell’s customer base has reached 6.82 million as of mid-December, according to the NTA. Similarly, the country’s total penetration figure has 56.46 percent with the total number of telecom customers amounting to 15.03 million.
NTA officials said that the number of mobile users had been rising rapidly for the last couple of years as a result of competition among the operators to expand their service and reduce the tariff. NT launched GSM mobile service in 1999, and its expansion drive accelerated following the introduction of pre-paid mobile service in 2003. The first private sector mobile operator Ncell, then known as Spice Nepal, entered the scene in 2005.
“The number of users has been growing in an unprecedented way with mobile service becoming cheaper and SIM cards becoming more easily available,” said NTA Director Anand Raj Khanal. He added that users were getting SIM cards for Rs 100 each with various attractive schemes offered by operators.
According to the NTA, the two largest mobile operators have been adding an average of 0.35 million new customers monthly to their subscriber base in the last five months. As of fiscal 2010-11, there were 11.6 million users (5.98 million of NT and 5.61 million of Ncell) and the penetration rate was 40.59 percent.
Competition among the operators is expected to increase further with NT working on a project to add 10 million mobile lines and Ncell investing US$ 100 million annually to expand its service.
Normally, customers have to wait for NT’s schemes to subscribe to mobile service. However, the biggest mobile project of the state-owned company is targeted at providing SIM cards on demand.
Recently, the government announced in its Good Governance Plan to bring a strategic partner for NT within six months and distribute 10 million lines within two years. Khanal said that mobile penetration was likely to cross 100 percent by the next three years based on the projects and plans of the operators. “The trend of carrying multiple SIM cards has also been increasing as operators have not been able to provide service of equal quality in different parts of the country,” he added.
Source: Kantipur
