After a slightly worrying slowdown at the end of 2008, the first two quarters of 2009 saw growth in Oman’s mobile market pick up again. The number of net additions in Q109 was only slightly higher than in Q408, but Q209 saw a bigger improvement, and growth is looking pretty healthy again.

What could have helped to stimulate this renewed growth may have been the introduction of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), which began to launch from May 2009. By the end of June 2009, according to the Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRA) the MVNOs had between them gleaned a small but noticeable market share. Although these can still be counted as being on Oman Mobile and Nawras’ networks, the new service providers do seem to have livened up the market with new competition, even if that competition is not as much of a threat as a new network operator would be. The report still holds that another mobile network operator would be of great benefit to the Omani mobile market.

The latest data on the fixed-line market show that the number of fixed lines in service has continued in its pattern of gentle oscillation. There are possibly signs that the overall trend is downwards rather than upwards, as it had tentatively been before, but we feel that it is probably too early to tell. At the end of June 2009, there were 271,764 fixed lines in service, still up very slightly on a year previously.

The broadband market continues in its steady growth, and by the end of Q209 there were 37,085 ADSL subscribers, and 379 leased line broadband subscribers, showing that overall broadband growth, as calculated by the TRA, was 4.7% for the quarter. However, dial-up subscriptions appear to be decreasing a lot faster than ADSL subscriptions are increasing, perhaps due to the fact that families will often share an ADSL connection through the use of a Wi-Fi router. Whatever the reason, the consequence is that the TRA’s measure of overall internet penetration is going down.

After finally being awarded the second fixed-line licence in July 2009, Nawras has revealed some of its plans for the fixed-line market. Unsurprisingly, its emphasis is on broadband: Nawras has outlined a big investment programme to greatly extend the reach of fibre-optic backbones in Oman, this making faster broadband available in many more areas. We still expect that Nawras will be delivering its fixed-line services over wireless technology.