According to ISNA news, Iran’s ministry of communication released a new report on the number 3G and 4G internet subscribers from all of the three Iranian mobile network operators.
Iran’s three mobile network operators MCI, Irancell and Rightel entered the mobile internet battle field aggressively after Rightel’s 3G monopoly contract expired in 2013. After the mentioned monopoly contract, other 2 Iranian operators which still hold more than 90% of the market share together (check Iran Mobile Network Operator market share). MTN’s Irancell started mass marketing campaigns on their 3G and 4G internet quickly and started to pick up a quick momentum. Hamrahe Aval (MCI) which is the largest mobile operating network showed weaker results in jumping on the 3G internet wave comparing to Irancell.
As of now MCI has the most 3G internet users following Irancell and lastly Rightel. In the 4G (LTE) user side the story is completely different, and Irancell holds about 6 times more users using its 4G internet than MCI. One of the reasons of this is that the majority of MCI users are requested to apply for a new “4G” sim card at representative stores. It must be mentioned that Irancell also provides Wi-Max and LTE-TDD internet for households and businesses which are obviously counted as part of its 4G internet users.
Statistics on Rightel’s internet users do not specify that the internet users are using 3G or 4G.
3G mobile internet subscribers per mobile operator:
1.MCI: 12,814,000 subscribers
2.Irancell: 10,468,500 subscribers
3.Rightel: 979,000 subscribers (total number of internet users)
4G mobile internet subscribers per mobile operator:
1.Irancell: 1,612,000 subscribers
2.MCI: 297,000 subscribers
3.Rightel: 979,000 subscribers (total number of internet users)
Total number of Internet subscribers of all mobile operators:
1.MCI: 13,111,000 subscribers
2.Irancell: 12,080,000 subscribers
3.Rightel: 979,000 subscribers
Statistics show Irancell had the highest growth in number of 4G internet subscribers.
Source: http://techrasa.com/2017/03/01/q1-2017-statistics-mobile-internet-iran/