KATHMANDU: Nepal Telecom (NT) has once again claimed majority market share of telecom service in the country. In terms of total customer base, it left behind Ncell by mid-March this year to become the number one operator.

The latest management information system (MIS) report of Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) says that NT’s total subscriber base touched 12.18 million, while Ncell had 12.15 million users as of mid-March. Even though NT leads the overall market, Ncell — the first private sector GSM mobile operator — is still the number one company in the mobile segment.

NT, the state-owned company, has been providing two types of telecom services — fixed line (PSTN and WLL) and mobile (GSM and CDMA). In the mobile segment, it has a total of 11.39 million users (10.18 million in GSM and 1.21 million in CDMA) and 0.84 million customers in fixed line, as per NTA. Ncell has 12.15 million users in GSM mobile, the major telecom service segment of the country.

“Implementation of two million IP-CDMA, 10 million GSM lines and new provision of outsourcing SIM sales have helped in increasing the number of customers rapidly,” said Prativa Baidhya, spokesperson for NT. She added that with competition growing in the market, they would focus on expansion and quality service delivery in the coming days.

Of the total 26.43 million subscriptions of voice service in the country, NT holds 46.08 per cent market share. Similarly, Ncell has a share of 45.97 per cent and the remaining 9.75 per cent is shared by four other telecom companies — Smart Telecom, United Telecom Ltd, Nepal Satellite Telecom and STM Telecom Sanchar.

Milan Sharma, corporate communication expert of Ncell, said that they are still leading the market with around 52 per cent share in mobile service segment. “If you refer to the latest NTA MIS, Ncell has 54.5 per cent share in GSM mobile,” he added.

Four years ago, Ncell had toppled NT in terms of subscriber base.

Until mid-March last year, there was a difference of 0.92 million in the total subscriber base of the two major operators — NT and Ncell. In the mobile segment, Ncell had 11.16 million subscribers, while NT had 9.47 million customers.

An official at NTA said that growth rate of mobile subscribers has been slow because NT brings schemes only occasionally and also due to the number of Ncell’s promotional schemes coming down after NTA tightened the screws on such campaigns.

Meanwhile, the country’s total telephone and internet penetration rate reached 99.84 per cent and 40.37 per cent, respectively, by mid-March.

NTA officials said though they are yet to declare it officially, the country’s penetration rate has already crossed 100 per cent in voice service with significant contribution of GSM mobile. The report shows that there are 10.69 million subscribers of data service that includes more than 10 million mobile internet users.