Sunday, May 26, 2013

Sparrow SMS - SMS VAS Service for NEPAL: Mobile Penetration in Nepal Reaches 66.96 Percent

Sparrow SMS - SMS VAS Service for NEPAL: Mobile Penetration in Nepal Reaches 66.96 Percent:Yet again Nepal Telecommunications Authority has released its monthly report on telecommunication scenario in Nepal. The report based on data collected till the date of April 13, 2013 shows a significant growth in the telephone penetration in Nepal over last one month.

The report shows that the telephone users in Nepal have increased by 1.58% from 73.88% last month to 75.46% this month. Yet again the increase is due to the increase in the users of mobile telephones from 65.65% last month to 66.96% while the percent of users of fixed telephone lines remains unchanged from the last month.
With total of 9,790,860 users, Ncell has 49% of total market shares while NTC has 44% with total of 8,705,315 users and UTL and SmartTel have market shares of 3% each.


There has also been an increase of 0.82% in the internet users in the country from 23.69 percent last month to 24.51 percent as per April 13. Although, there is increase in number of users of all the internet services, GPRS still leads the users’ choice of internet service while the newly initiated WiMax service from NTC seems to be getting popular and has gained 450 more users since last month and now has 648 users.UTL this month has suffered a loss of a percent in its internet users which resulted in a gain of a percent user for Ncell. Ncell, thus, now has 52 percent of entire market share in internet while NTC has 46 percent. UTL and other ISPs follow behind with 1 percent each.

If we look at the data over the last one year, the mobile penetration has increased by 11.56% while there has been 5.41 percent increase in internet users in Nepal.
Overall, the data suggests that the penetration of communication technologies in Nepal is getting stronger and with the introduction of new operators and service providers there is strong competition in the market. While, Ncell still remains to be the most popular brand in telecommunication, WiMax the new internet service brought by NTC is getting popular with time.