Vodafone Close To Knocking Off Tigo

Vodafone Ghana is inching closer to displacing Tigo as the second largest mobile operator in the country in terms of market share. Latest figures released by the National Communications Authority on its website show that Vodafone now controls 18 per cent of market share from the 15. 8 percent it recorded earlier this year. Tigo, dropped from the 22 percent it enjoyed to 20 percent, which is just two percent shy of the fast approaching Vodafone. Even though Vodafone has acknowledged that the launch of the mobile number portability has greatly influenced its numbers in terms of market share, it is in the interim focused on growing the company. Meanwhile, MTN which still controls almost half of the market saw its market share drop for the sixth conservative time this year. This perhaps confirms earlier predictions by market watchers that the mobile number portability could affect the market leader. In a related development, Expresso which has the smallest market share lost some of the 1. 38 percent it controlled and is now left with a paltry 1. 1 percent. Airtel has however gained marginally from the 8. 9 percent market share to 9. 7 percent. The regulator, National Communications Authority (NCA) is however unhappy about the quality of service provided by the mobile phone networks in the northern parts of the country. A team from the NCA returned from parts of the Northern region after interacting with end users on a number of issues including the quality of service, customer service amongst others. NCA officials visited the Northern Region on a two-week fact-finding exercise which ended on Tuesday. Districts visited in Tamale include Yendi, Napkanduru, Boli, Nalerigu, Damango and Walewale. They found out the reactions of the public about the quality of telecom services. According to the NCA, it will submit its report findings to the operators this week expecting them to improve their services up north in relation to their key performance indices. The operators risk sanctions from the NCA if there is no improvement. Deputy Director at the NCA Mawuko Zomelo told The Globe that his outfit will take proper action if the companies fail to address the situation. �The customers had grievances and observations that we (NCA) are not particularly enthused about. They may have their own problems, they may have their own perceptions about what the end user feels but at the end of the day, the end user expects a certain quality of service from the network operator. So we will sit down with them, draw the line with our own and their own key performance indices; we are sure we will get to a middle line�.