Rabat – Internet use in Morocco recorded a boom during the second quarter of 2017. The rate of subscribers has reached 19 million users, up by 29 percent compared to the same quarter of 2016, said the National Agency for the Legalization of Communications (ANRT) on Friday.
During the previous four months, internet use recorded nearly 1million new subscriptions, with a penetration rate exceeding 55 percent of the Moroccan population, said the ANRT in a press release.
The ANRT said that the growth of internet use continues to be driven mainly by mobile networks, particularly 3G and 4G. As a result, mobile Internet subscribers amounted to almost 18 million, with quarterly growth of 5.7 percent, as more than 965,000 new subscriptions are recorded each four months.
The annual growth of internet use amounts to nearly 31 percent, with more than 4,443,000 new subscriptions recoded annually.
As of June 30, 2017, 4G mobile Internet use reached nearly 4.7 million customers, an increase of 37 percent compared to the first quarter of 2017.
ADSL use grew by 1 percent in the secondquarter of 2017 and 8percent compared to 2016.
The mobile phone network registered a slight increase of0.64 percent and annual growth of 1.48 percent at the end of June 2017, reaching a rate of 42.05 million subscribers.
The agency highlighted that the mobile phone “is growing by a seasonally adjusted 0.64 percent year-on-year and 1.48 percent year-on-year, with 42 million and 50,000 subscribers.”
In terms of consumption, the average mobile phone usage per subscriber per month was at 109 minutes by the end of June 2017, compared to 112 minutes a year earlier. The agency added that average monthly usage of land lines dropped from 124 to 118 minutes between June 2016 and June 2017.
The agency explained that these slight declines were mainly due to a decrease in international outbound and outbound exports.
