Overall, the TRA’s 7th report on market indicators highlights steady increase in Bahrain’s mobile telephony.
“The report on telecom market indicators by the TRA show that consumers have taken advantage of developments in mobile phone services offered in the Kingdom of Bahrain, resulting in a steady increase in subscribers and revenues,” Shaikh Fawaz Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, Minister of State for Communications, said.
The report covers analysis and statistics from the period beginning in 2011 through the 2nd quarter of 2012.
Compared to statistics for 2010, the figures in the latest report show an increase in all areas of mobile services. These include mobile traffic and revenues; Blackberry subscribers; add on data services; and overall mobile service subscriber penetration.
Domestic mobile originated traffic reached 5.1 billion minutes in 2011, an increase of 35% from the previous year (2010). Mobile telephone services continue to be a significant market segment, accounting for 46% of retail telecoms services revenues in 2011 (up from 44% in 2010). Moreover, mobile originated international outgoing minutes made up 92% of the total international outgoing minutes in 2011.
The report also indicates a dramatic rise in Blackberry users in the Kingdom. By the end of 2011 there were 210,000 Blackberry subscribers, representing 12.5% of all mobile subscribers and a considerable increase of 123% from 2010.
In regards to mobile data services, at the end of 2011 approximately 43,700 mobile users subscribed to add-on data services, compared to 11,500 in 2010.
The overall penetration of mobile services is steadily growing in Bahrain, with 1.9 million mobile subscribers by the end of the 2nd quarter in 2012, representing a mobile penetration rate of 158%.
The Minister pointed out that the significant growth in the mobile telecoms market has been very positively impacted by the healthy competition between the three mobile networks operating in Bahrain since 2009. This is borne out by the increase in mobile subscription penetration, up from 130% in 2008 to the current 158%; a 176% increase in domestic mobile calls between 2008 and 2011; and an increase of 570% in mobile broadband services in a 2 year period (June 2010 – June 2012).