25.5% rise in post-paid mobile subscriptions

Muscat: The total number of post-paid mobile phone subscriptions increased by 25.5 percent at the end of October 2022 to stand at 1,546,812 subscriptions compared to the corresponding period in 2021, according to the latest data issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

Pre-paid mobile phone subscriptions rose by 11.2 percent to stand at 5,278,389 subscriptions, of those 4,137,164 were through service providers, while 1,141,225 through reselling.

The total mobile phone subscriptions went up by 14.2 percent by the end of October 2022 compared to the corresponding period in 2021 to stand at 6,825,201 subscribers (post-paid and pre-paid).

The number of active mobile broadband subscriptions increased by 9.8 percent at the end of October 2022 compared to October 2021. Subscriptions to the fixed internet service registered a rise at the end of October 2022 by 2.9 percent to reach 539,664 compared to the same period in 2021.

Total fixed broadband subscriptions (over 256 Kilobyte/sec) stood at 537,936 by the end of October 2022, constituting a rise by 3 percent compared to October 2021, while lower-speed internet subscriptions (lower than 256 Kilobyte/sec), including mobile connection and leased internet lines, stood at 1,728 subscriptions, comprising a drop by 15.3 percent .The number of fixed telephone subscriptions declined by 3.8 percent at the end of October 2022 to reach 561,217 compared to the corresponding period in 2021.

Further, analogue fixed telephone lines (pre-paid and post-paid) fell by 14 percent to 241,627 subscriptions compared to the same period in 2021.

According to the NCSI report, the number of (VoIP) lines rose by 6.9 percent to 262,284 subscriptions compared to the same period in 2021.

At the governorates level, Muscat came at the top of the list in terms of the number of analogue fixed telephone lines (61.06 percent), followed by North Al Batinah (11.48 percent), Dhofar (8.44 percent) and other governorates (19.01 percent).

Moreover, the number of subscriptions of ISDN channels rose by 1.9 percent by the end of October 2022 to stand at 49,548 compared to the same period in 2021.

In addition, the number of wireless fixed subscriptions went down by 20.7 percent at the end of October 2022 to reach 957, while the number of public phones stabilised at 6,801.