* Rivals fail to capitalise on 4G; Contract wins vs pre-paid *
State-owned Cyta, the Cyprus telco that should have headed for privatisation within the next three years, has been steadily losing market share to its rival mobile phone operators, who, nevertheless, failed to capitalise on the launch of high-speed 4G telephony earlier this year.
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The total number of mobile phone subscribers continued to decline in the first half of 2015, to its lowest level since the second half of 2011, down 14,385 to 1,096,417 from June last year. The fall is mainly attributed to the economic crisis with subscribers cancelling more pre-paid lines than monthly contracts.
Interestingly, the pre-paid market is at its lowest level of the past six years, while contract subscriber levels are at their highest of the past six years. The turning point was the end of December 2013, when both services were tied, with pre-paid mobile telephony being the dominant before that.
With Cyta’s market share at 63.85%, the once former state monopoly had a total of 700,062 subscribers at the end of June, losing 32,778 subscribers in a year. This suggests that its gamble to delay its nationwide transmission of the 4G platform to the end of the year may pay off as the threshold 700,000 subscriber mark must be maintained if it wants to retain value and be attractive to new investors.
Already, since October, Cyta had been selectively upgrading subscribers and geographical areas to test its national reception, with the telco announcing that it was offering nationwide reception as of November.
In an effort to boost revenues, Cyta has been prioritising corporate customers at the expense of ordinary users, but this will never bring down the huge payroll, as analysts suggest that the state-owned telco’s 2,000 staff makes it “hugely oversubscribed” with lower output than its rivals.
MTN, whose CEO had publicly challenged Cyta some two years back, claiming the South African network would reach a 50% market share, too, has missed its mark.
In April, it launched a major campaign employing Formula racing driver Tio Ellinas, saying in its adverts at the time that it had full coverage in urban areas.
Since then, the rhetoric seems to have died down as MTN is more keen to build up its presence in the technology sector in general, creating the MTN Business unit to look after the telecom needs of higher-worth corporate clients. As part of this, MTN bought out ICT provider IBS earlier this year.
However, MTN’s mobile sector market share is at its highest, with 343,398 subscribers in June for a market share of 31.32%, up from 333,754 subscribers and 30.09% market share in June 2014
Primetel, the only alternative rival to both Cyta and MTN which appeared in the second half of 2011, has been unable to grow its numbers to healthy levels. Subscribers reached 41,444 in June this year for a 3.78% market share, up from 30,058 subscribers and 2.71% in June 2014.
Cablenet, the broadband provider, is not expected to be expanding to conventional copper telephony or mobile telephony any time soon, leaving only MTN and Primetel as Cyta’s main competitors. However, both companies have been making mistakes and are slow to clinch disgruntled customers from Cyta.
In the pre-paid sector, LemonTel has lost subscribers, dropping from 8,207 in June 2014 to 6,578 in June this year and a market share of 0.60%, while CallSat has picked up customers, increasing from 4,215 to 4,824 for a share of 0.44%.
Where Cyta is losing in retail market share, it may be gaining from its investment in Greece, CytaHellas, as well as the infrastructure owner/operator CytaGlobal through its recent investments in international subsea cables.
CytaHellas recently appointed a new CEO, moving 26-year veteran Nicos Charalambous from Cyprus in an effort to boost the business there and rebuilt its reputation, due to failing after-sales service and support.
CytaHellas, that will probably be spun off separately if the telco’s privatisation goes ahead, owns a fibre optic subsea cable of 5,500 km, has 300,000 subscribers, 26 shops and 600 associates, with a footprint that reaches 70% of population coverage in Greece, resulting in a market share of 17% among alternative providers and 10% of th broadband market. It employs 750 staff and had a turnover of EUR 90.49 mln in 2014 with net profits of EUR 2.07 mln, up from a near-breakeven point in 2013.
