Jordan Has Fewer Subscribers Than Reported

A survey by the Arab Advisors Group is reporting that Jordan's effective mobile penetration rate is less than two thirds the conventional figures.

Multiple line use by the same individuals and the presence of expatriates outside official population figures, set Jordan?s Effective Mobile Penetration Rate at around 48%, 26 percentage points lower than its 74.2% mobile penetration rate.

"Arab Advisors Group survey revealed that - on the individual level- most respondents own one mobile line: 63.5% of respondents own a single line while 36.5% of respondents own more than one mobile line." Mr. Jawad Abbassi, Arab Advisors Group's Founder and General Manager commented. "28.5% of cellular users in Jordan have 2 lines while 5.7% have 3 lines. A minute minority of 0.8% has more than 3 lines." Mr. Abbassi added.

Having more than one line seems to be mainly driven by capitalizing on the different plans, offers and promotions of the operators: 58.1% of respondents who have more than one mobile line state cost savings as the reason. Maintaining an older mobile number came in second at 26.3%.

According to operators' published figures, Jordan's mobile market had 4.15 million lines by end of 2006. Hence, the mobile penetration rate (defined as number of lines divided by the official population figure) stood at 74.2%.

"Based on the trend of the same individual owning multiple lines, the Arab Advisors Group introduced the Effective Mobile Penetration Rate: The effective mobile penetration rate considers the percentage of individuals with one or more mobile lines and is calculated by dividing the number of the estimated individual mobile users (and not mobile lines) by the estimated actual population figure (including expatriates and migrant workers)." Mr. Abbassi explained.

"Based on the survey findings, the ratio of the number of lines to the number of mobile users is 1.4. Applying this ratio to the reported total number of mobile lines, the actual number of individual mobile subscribers in Jordan is estimated at 2.9 million subscribers by end of 2006. The Arab Advisors Group estimates the population (including expatriates and migrant workers) to be half a million persons above official statistics consisting mainly of Egyptian, Iraqi and Syrian expatriates. Therefore, the Arab Advisors Group calculates Jordan's Effective Mobile Penetration rate (% of individuals with one or more mobile lines) to be 47.9%." Mr Abbassi added.

"The two measures are not contradictory but rather explore the situation from two different angles: The number of mobile lines as well as the estimated number of individuals using these lines". Mr. Abbassi concluded. "

Posted to the site on 24th July 2007