The Egyptian mobile market lost 1.45 million subscribers in April to reach 97.6 million compared to 99.1 million in March, according to a report by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
The report noted that the three major mobile operators—Vodafone, Orange, and Etisalat—have all lost a number of their subscribers.
Vodafone was the company with the biggest loss in its customer base, with 968,500 clients leaving the company in April, dropping its subscribers from 43.2 million in March to 42.2 million in April—a decline of 2.2%.
Orange came in second place in terms of customers lost, going down from 32.6 million in March to 32.1 million in April, so the company lost 578,500 customers, equivalent to 1.7%.
Etisalat’s customer base decreased from 20.6 million in March to 20.3 million in April, losing 297,600 customers, equivalent to 1.4%, to be the mobile operator that lost the least amount of customers.
The mobile market witnessed a previous decline in the number of mobile subscribers in March, losing about 1.2 million subscribers, dropping the total number of subscribers from 100.2 million in February to 99.1 million in March.
Vodafone managed to increase its subscribers to 43.1 million in March from 42.9 million in February.
Orange lost 591,800 customers, falling from 33.2 million in February to 32.6 million in March.
Etisalat also lost a number of its customers in March, amounting to about 706,300 subscribers.
The three mobile operators, along with Telecom Egypt, have begun to provide 4G services. Orange and Etisalat received 10 MHz of frequency bands for the 4G services, while Vodafone received 5 MHz. TE got the 4G licence for EGP 5.5bn and 15 MHz in bandwidth, in addition for EGP 2.2bn for the licence itself, leaving the price of bands at $626.4m and a MHz price of $41.7m.
