Muscat – Oman’s telecom operators have recorded a sharp increase in monthly bill-paying phone subscribers and internet customers, thanks to people migrating from prepaid to postpaid plans and increased demand for data usage.

The total postpaid mobile phone subscriber base in Oman surged by nearly 24% to 1.716mn as of April 2023 compared to 1.386mn subscribers in April last year.

This means that service providers have added more than 330,000 new postpaid customers over the last one year, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority’s (TRA) data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information.

On the other hand, the prepaid mobile subscriber base in the sultanate also increased by 9.3% to 5.193mn as of April 2023 from 4.750mn in April 2022, an increase of 443,000 subscribers over the year, according to the TRA figures.

Overall, total mobile phone subscriptions (prepaid and postpaid) in Oman grew by 12.6% to 6.909mn as of April this year compared to 6.136mn a year ago.

Telecom operators recorded a 9.4% rise in the number of subscribers at 3.975mn, while mobile resellers witnessed a 9% increase in their subscriber base at 1.218mn.

In line with these trends, the sultanate’s largest telecom operator, Omantel, posted robust growth in the number of total mobile subscribers. The company’s total domestic subscriber base as of March 2023 (including mobile and fixed businesses) rose to 3.251mn (excluding mobile resellers) from 3.170mn a year ago.

Omantel’s domestic revenues in the first quarter of 2023 rose more than 22% to RO163.1mn compared to RO133.3mn for the corresponding period in 2022.

‘Revenue growth was mainly achieved in mobile postpaid and fixed broadband revenues. Core retail revenues increased during the (first quarter) period, contributed mainly by growth in postpaid mobile revenue (10.8%) and fixed broadband revenue (5.2%),’ Omantel said in its first quarter financial report.

According to Fitch Ratings, Omantel made good progress in 2022 in transitioning prepaid customers onto postpaid contracts, where average revenues per year are higher.

Ooredoo Oman’s mobile postpaid customer base grew by 18.6% to 750,975 customers at the end of the first quarter of 2023, compared to 633,288 customers a year ago. The company’s mobile prepaid customer base also increased to 2,121,628 at the end of the first quarter this year compared to 2,026,179 customers a year ago.

However, Ooredoo’s fixed service customer base decreased by 4.7% to 157,952 customers as of the end of the first quarter of 2023 compared to 165,676 customers at the end of the first quarter of 2022.

According to the company’s quarterly financial report, Ooredoo’s revenue for the first three months of 2023 increased by 1.9% to RO65.9mn compared with RO64.7mn in 2022.

‘The increase is driven by growth in mobile postpaid, higher handset sales, and higher revenue from ICT solutions,’ Ooredoo said in its report.

Internet services

Total active mobile broadband subscriptions in Oman rose by 12.6% to 5.781mn in April this year compared with 5.132mn a year ago.

The number of fixed-line internet connections also grew by 3.6% to 539,329 subscribers as of April 2023, against 520,842 subscribers in April 2022.

The demand for high-speed data usage has substantially increased in Oman after the pandemic and is consistently growing each year.

According to the TRA statistics, the total international internet bandwidth capacity in Oman sharply expanded by 65% to 2,502,935 Mbps as of April this year, compared with 1,521,000 Mbps a year ago.