Ghana telephony: For 40 Ghanaians with mobile phones, only one has a fixed line

efo-callingAs Ghana’s telephony industry grows, many more Ghanaians own mobile handsets than there are Ghanaians who own fixed telephone lines or landlines.

A study by Companies and Markets, a research firm has found the ratio for mobile phone and fixed line owners in Ghana is 40:1.

Ghana has a vibrant mobile phone industry. There are six companies licensed to do business, they are MTN, Tigo, Vodafone, Kasapa, Zain, and Glo, which is yet to start operations.

There are over 11 million Ghanaians out of the country’s population of 22 million who are using mobile phones. Leading the pack is MTN with about 6.8 million subscribers as at March 2009, according to National Communication Authority (NCA) figures.

Vodafone and Zain are licensed to offer fixed line services, but Zain which bought Westel, one of the country’s national providers, which mandate was to increase fixed line services in the country, but was unsuccessful, is yet to expand the fixed line component of the business.

Meanwhile, in an earlier report by Companies and Markets, Ghana’s mobile telephony industry has been sited as one of the largest in West Africa.

According to its forecast of the first quarter of 2009 for West and Central Africa, the following countries; Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon and Mali were noted to have larger markets than previously predicted at the end of 2008.

On the other hand, the mobile markets of Cameroon, Mauritania and Senegal were cited by the report to be smaller than expected at the end of the year.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

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