Research and Markets have reported that Ghana remains a vibrant mobile phone market, and an exciting emerging market place for mobile services. Ghana is attractive to operators because of strong demand and fast paced infrastructural improvements.
The Nigerian operator, Globacom entered the market in 2012 in what the report describes as a boost to the sector. Globacom is the sixth operator in the market and the report indicates that the competition is driving down ARPU. This is good news for consumers with the voice market projected to exceed 90% penetration in mid-2012. Last week, operator MTN reported that it saw revenues in Ghana increase by 19.9%, making a strong contribution to overall H1 results.
International internet connectivity has increased, reducing the expense of providing mobile internet services. The report points out that there have been three new fibre links to Ghana between 2010 and 2012. Notable developments like the WACS cable, which runs from South Africa to Great Britain up along the West African coast have eliminated a previous monopoly on international fibre connections.
The report predicts that recently introduced technologies: 3G, WiMAX and HSPA will be the new growth paradigm for operators, following the near total saturation of the voice market. To this end, fibre backbone is being deployed by various players—the report found that 3G currently represents the ‘vast majority’ of Internet connections.
