Nepal Telecom reports an increase in the number of internet users with greater market share as per the Economic Survey of fiscal year 2076/77.
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has released an economic survey report that also includes information about the overall economic status of Telecommunications in the Fiscal Year 2076/77 till Falgun. The report provides a comprehensive overview of Nepal’s telecom market up to the month of Falgun.
Nepal Doorsanchar Company Limited (NTC), Nepal’s largest mobile network operator in terms of subscribers, has garnered the highest market share of internet service this fiscal year. The report has stated some legitimate data on subscribers, penetration, and revenue.
According to the Economic Survey made public by Finance Minister, Dr. Yuvraj Khatiwoda in the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament, NTC has a greater number of customers in the fiscal year 2076/77. Out of the total population of Nepal, internet service has successfully reached 75 percent of the population.
Among the total Internet users, NTC has 48.9 percent share while Ncell contributes to 32.8 percent. And, the share of various Internet Service Providers (ISP) comes at 18.3 percent.
Here we can see the growth in internet penetration is more with all ISPs together. Of course, the ISPs count a lot of companies dedicated to extend internet services to more places and serve more number of households.
As of Falgun of the fiscal year 2076/77, the telephone density is 139 percent and internet subscriber density is 75 percent. In the fiscal year 2075/76, the teledensity was 137 percent and internet penetration was 60 percent.
According to the report, the number of mobile phone users in Nepal is 4 crore 7 lakhs. The number of mobile phone users in the fiscal year 2075/76 was 4 crore 5 lakhs, which marks an increase of 5.9 percent compared to the data of fiscal year 2074/75.
The economic survey (Arthik Sarbekchan) report also includes the extension of Nepal Telecom’s 4G service to 77 districts. This is quite a great achievement in the last FY and this has actually increased the mobile broadband speed of the country (Ookla report). Similarly, the government-owned company could expand the mobile service to remote locations with 253 new towers.
Nepal Telecom has a plan to migrate the existing ADSL to FTTH service. In the long run, local telephones will be converted to fiber technology which can provide internet, television (IPTV), and voice services from a single wire.
Although they had planned an FTTH network capacity of 4 lakhs, they could expand it to 1.5 lakhs only. Among them, they distribute the fiber internet service to 43,000 only. This shows they need to focus more on FTTH fiber network and reach out to more people.
There are speculations of applying taxes on the cache internet bandwidth in the budget for FY 2077/78, which will definitely have an impact on the affordability of internet services. Let’s see how will the budget come upon this matter.
Source: https://www.nepalitelecom.com/2020/05/nepal-telecom-internet-market-share-FY-2076-77.html