| The telecommunications sector constitutes one of the flagships of the economy. |
Telecommunications generate billions of ariary in turnover and prosper with unlimited room for growth. Telecommunications, with their variations, offer valuable services, create jobs and can only be of interest to the State in terms of tax yield.
According to the Communication Technologies Regulatory Authority (Artec), the telecommunications sector constitutes one of the flagships of the Malagasy economy, with a few licensed operators, but also hundreds of others under other regimes. , which change little by little each year. Thus, telecommunications generated a turnover of more than 1,500 billion ariary compared to 1,271 billion ariary in 2021, an annual increase of 21%.
The data provided by Artec also shows that the fixed voice service shows an increase of 19.03% in terms of turnover between 2021 and 2022. During the same period, the mobile service (voice & SMS) and the service data (fixed & mobile) respectively show an increase in turnover of 14.83% and 38.99%. The wholesale service, on the other hand, experienced a decrease of 10.38% compared to the year 2021. As for the installation and resale service of terminals, it presents an increase of 31.82% compared to the year 2021. year 2021. The turnover of the call center & TowerCo service also increased by 23.27%.
For mobile telephony, revenues collected by operators saw a significant increase of 18% for a turnover of 844 billion ariary in 2022 compared to 714 billion the previous year. The Voice service remains the leading revenue-generating service with 604 billion in revenue generated. The SMS service, even if it only represents 2% of total revenues, has seen an increase of 31% in one year.
The Mobile Data service remains on its path with 125 billion in revenue (97 billion in 2021). The sale of equipment and accessories also saw an increase of 70% with 33 billion turnover compared to 19 billion in 2021.
After a drop of 27.45% in 2021, the number of fixed lines is on the rise again in 2022 with growth of 9.17%, to reach 39,318 lines. Revenues are estimated at 16.1 billion ariary in 2022. Artec specifies that traffic to “Local Fixed” are calls made between fixed subscribers in the same city, while traffic to “National Fixed” are calls made between landline subscribers in different cities. The fixed service is used less and less. Fixed international calls (outgoing and incoming) no longer even exceed one million minutes.
These latest estimates published by Artec were discussed with various stakeholders in the telecommunications and financial inclusion sector during the week of March 18 to 22, 2024 to take stock of the sector.
Eric Ranjalahy