ANRT: More Than 25 Million Moroccans Have Internet Subscriptions

Rabat – Morocco’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) announced that the number of internet subscribers in Morocco amounted to 25.38 million in 2019.

ANRT released the figures on its official website on March 6, with the report illustrating a significant jump in the number of users of different services.

The agency recorded an 11.43% increase in internet subscriptions in 2019, representing a 2.6% growth from 2018.

In terms of mobile data subscriptions, ANRT recorded an increase of 11.22% in 2019, a growth of 2.21% compared to 2018.

1.48 million Moroccans subscribed to DSL broadband connections in 2019, a 4.07% increase from 2018.

Meanwhile, the fiber-optic network, a new development in Morocco, accumulated 121,237 subscriptions in 2019 against 37,169 the previous year.

The International Communication Union (ITU) reported that Morocco had more than 20.5 million internet users in 2017, constituting a 58.3% penetration rate and including 12 million Facebook users.

The same body reported statistics about individual internet usage in 2018 in Morocco. 64% of the population used the internet in 2018; more specifically, 61.1% of Moroccan women used the internet compared to 68.5% of men.

The US-based NGO Freedom House classified internet use in Morocco as “partly free” in its latest Freedom on the Net report.

In assessing online freedoms, the NGO relies on a research package based on democracy and international human rights laws.

Morocco ranked in the same category as Tunisia, Libya, Nigeria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Ukraine, while the report classified Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain as “non-free” countries.