Rabat – Internet use, driven by increased smartphone usage, is capturing an annual growth rate of 33.34 percent and a penetration rate of 64.74 percent, said the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) in its Q3 2017 report.
The number of Internet subscribers reached 22.56 million in the third quarter 2017, mainly propelled by the growth of mobile use, which recorded an annual increase of 35.17 percent to 21.24 million subscribers at the end of September 2017.
Users of 4G internet stand at nearly 6.46 million, recording a 38 percent increase per quarter. Meanwhile, the ADSL park also recorded quarterly growth of nearly 0.45 percent.
The mobile phone pool recorded an annual growth of 2.1 percent and a penetration rate of 127 percent, reach 44.25 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter of 2017. This change is mainly related to the “summer” economic period, during which several acquisition and subscription operations were carried out by the mobile operators.
Meanwhile, the fixed line base is down 3.67 percent per year and stands at 2.04 million, with a penetration rate of 5.87 percent at the end of Q3 2017.
In terms of charges, the price of mobile communications, measured by average revenue per minute, stood at MAD 0.23 per minute at the end of the quarter.
The average revenue per Internet customer was MAD 25 per month at the end of the same quarter against MAD 24 HT percent month the previous year.
For postpaid mobile, it fell from 621 minutes per month at the end of September 2016 to 551 minutes month to the end of September 2017, due to declining traffic.
