September 2 (SeeNews) - Moldova's total mobile telephony sales decreased by 3.4% year-on-year to over 1.526 billion lei ($85.2 million/77.7 million euro) in the first half of 2019, the country's telecoms regulator, ANRCETI, said on Monday.
The number of mobile telephony users edged down by 0.4% in the first six months of 2019 to 4.360 million, ANRCETI said in a statement. Of the total number of subscribers, 3.466 million were active mobile subscribers and 893,900 were passive users.
The drop in users was caused by a decline in Orange Moldova's customer base by 41,600 subscribers to 2.498 million customers.
The customer base of the other two mobile telephony operators, Moldcell and Moldtelecom, increased by 14,900 to 1.467 million and by 10,500 to 395,300 respectively.
Moldtelecom recorded the highest average revenue per user (ARPU), of 80.2 lei, followed by Orange Moldova with 76.4 lei and Moldcell with 64.7 lei.
The penetration rate of mobile telephony services relative to 100 inhabitants decreased by 1.4% on the year in the January-June period to 129%. Average ARPU edged down year-on-year by 0.4% to 72.5 lei.
Voice traffic volume edged up by 0.6% year-on-year in January-June to 3.83 billion minutes.
According to ANRCETI data, Orange Moldova has the highest market share in terms of turnover - 63.6%, followed by Moldcell with 30.7% and Moldtelecom with 5.7% at end-June.
(1 euro = 19.630 Moldovan lei)