Ghanaian telcos Glo Ghana has recorded the company’s first drop in the number of subscribers on its Glo Mobile network since it commenced operations in Ghana about five months ago.
The revelation comes as a huge surprise to observers of the nation’s telecoms sector who claim the drop totally negates what the company management recently told the media — that Glo’s earning is on the increase.
According to some Glo officials, the “drop did not perturb the mobile network”. They said increases are being recorded in the company’s various business parameters such as minute uses and recharge usage.
Glo Ghana, a subsidiary of Globacom Nigeria, commenced its Ghana operations in April this year. Within its first month of operating in Nigeria, the company gained about 2 percent of Ghana’s telecoms market share.
Within two months, it gained 4.2 percent, 5 percent in the third month, and according to the National Communication Authority (NCA), Glo Ghana currently has about 6.5 percent of the 24,884,195 mobile subscriptions in Ghana.
According to the third quarter Mobile Voice Subscriber Base statistics released by the NCA, between August and September, Glo Ghana’s subscriber base reduced by around 3,254 from 1,613,688 to 1,610,434 subscribers, representing a marginal 0.2 percent drop.
NCA figures are based on activity over a period of 90 days. Experts argue the September figures may have been affected by losses in June, and the inability of the network to recover from those loses within the 90 days from July to September.
The June losses suggest that some subscribers who registered new SIMs on Glo mobile network in April and May became inactive as early as June. This awareness surprised industry watchers including Glo Ghana’s head of business Patrick Awotwe.
