Until recently, Oman’s telecoms industry was a monopoly controlled exclusively by Omantel. However,as the government has started to release control of the operator - it currently owns 70% of the incumbentcarrier - so too has the telecoms regulator started to liberalise the market. At the beginning of 2005,Oman’s second national mobile operator Nawras launched its services commercially, creating a vibrantand competitive market place. And as a result, BMI forecasts that mobile penetration will reach 90% bythe end of this year and that the introduction of value-added mobile services should ensure that subscribergrowth will continue so that by the end of our forecast period, penetration could be around the 110%mark.
However, until now Oman’s fixed-line and internet markets have remained very much in the hands ofOmantel. The regulator has confirmed its plan to introduce competition in the ISP market, and BMI isparticularly excited at this prospect as we see huge potential for growth here, especially within the highspeedDSL market. Our forecasts suggest that the number of broadband customers could grow byapproximately 80% y-o-y to 25,000 by end-2007, and from there could escalate to such an extent thataverage annual growth will reach 185% until the end of 2011, when there could be as many as 210,000DSL subscribers. We are less confident that competition in Oman’s fixed-line telephony market willmake too much difference, but the introduction of a SNO, as is being discussed by the regulator, could notfail to create a more competitive market.
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