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Ghana Telecommunications Report Q3 2009Product Type: Market Research ReportPublished by: Business Monitor International Published: July 2009 Product Code: R302-7097 Description Ghana ended 2008 with a mobile penetration rate teetering at close to 50%, and nearly 11.8mn mobilesubscribers. Penetration broke through the 50% mark in the first quarter of 2009, and we see the marketending the year with 60% penetration.The operators are hoping that 2009 will see 3G take off in Ghana. At the very end of 2008, Zain launchedas the fifth operator on the market. It launched as a 2G and 3G operator, making it the first to offer 3Gservices in the country. It only managed this by a whisker, however, as market leader MTN launched itsown 3G network soon afterwards. Coverage of the new services remains fairly minimal, but the operatorsare working at expanding it, and Vodafone has contracted Huawei to upgrade its own network. 3G couldhelp boost uptake of internet services in Ghana, and will hopefully give the operators a fresh revenuestream, which may be helpful as the increasing levels of competition put some pressure on their ARPUs. April 2008 was the month that Vodafone chose to rebrand One Touch and Ghana Telecom as Vodafone.BMI did wonder if it would wait until its own 3G launch to have a big occasion as a launch pad for thenew brand. The decision to push ahead with an earlier rebranding suggests that Vodafone feels it hasovercome a lot of the negative press that surrounded its purchase of Ghana Telecom, although there arestill some inquiries going on into the details of the deal. Ghana’s fixed-line market is looking fairly healthy, as African fixed-line markets go. Penetration is closeto 2%, and Vodafone is apparently investing in extending the Ghana Telecom network. At the same time,the National Communications Authority (NCA) is in the process of issuing national and zonal fixedwirelesslicences, in an effort to promote competition in the fixed-line sector and reinvigorate the market. In December 2008 the Main One cable company received landing rights to connect its undersea cable toincreasing the bandwidth of hungry Ghana. Internet use has been quite slow to take off, and cheaperinternational bandwidth will certainly be beneficial. However, it may have a more dramatic impact onother areas of the telecoms industry, since all carriers have to pay, one way or another, for internationalconnectivity, and reductions in costs could lead to lower prices, which are often lamented as being toohigh. Table of Contents
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