DATA WAR IN GAMBIAN TELECOMMUNICATION- WHO IS THE KING OF DATA?

The old adage cash is king is getting very synonymous with the prevailing trend in the Gambian telecommunication sphere. Data is now poised to be the next thing in telecommunications and Gambia is not left out in the fray. Subscribers of telecommunications services are constantly  increasing their demand for data services for their pressing wants and needs of accessing 0TC applications such as IMO, WhatsApp, Viber and other Social media applications. Consequently the network operators are positioning themselves to cater for the growing demands of the sector. The data business is currently shared by Africell, Qcell and Gamcel. There is quite a lot of noise as per who the data market leader is. Well the jury is out and statistics can’t be massaged nor twisted to tell a story that is otherwise not the case. The Public Regulator, PURA has published a Report for Q1 2017 KPI’s that can ascertain trends in terms of service delivery, technical roll out and updated network topology on both the 2G and 3G networks. This report is independent as it automatically collect data from live transactions executed on the various networks. For all intent and purpose, my emphasis will be on the 3G networks as all data transmission is channelled through that medium. The map below clearly depicts the current status of the 3G national topology as at end April 2017.

3G networks are prevalent all over the country but based on the PURA report of April 2017, Africel by far have more cells deployed than any other operator. This move by Africel is a deliberate tactical decision towards consolidation of its market dominant position. Africel has 736 cells, Qcell has 592 cells and Gamcel has 152 cells. The data war is for real. Pricing and marketing gimmicks alone will not ensure dominant position in the market. The relevant Capital expenditure is whats going to bankroll the data supremacy of the competition and Africel has over the past 12 months put in considerable capital expenditure to boost both transmission and data capacity of their network. Based on the foregoing, the jury is out and the data provided by PURA indicates that the data war for the time being belongs to Africel albeit that they are yet to launch a 4G neteork unlike Qcell. Based on the data provided by PURA, the Qcell LTE network is yet to make a dent on Africel’s data pie This can be explained by a possible lag effect on the introduction of a new technology by Qcell which is yet to filter down to its subscribers or the current rollout of LTE sites are so insignificant to the overall size of their network. For example if the current LTE coverage is less than 6% of their overall network the benefits of the new technology will not be felt. For the period under review, Qcell registered a negative growth -.72% in its data business whilst both Gamcel and Africel registered positive growth of 19.81% and 22.35% respectively.

As an analyst of the sector, I am baffled by the data returns from PURA as I was of the view that Qcell enjoyed a comfortable data lead in the market considering their marketing efforts. I can safely say that the jury is out unless this growth trend is tamed. Africel is undoubtedly the king of data in this war of megabytes and data bundles. Curiousity begs to inquire why is Africel a market leader? This will be addressed in subsequent posts after satisfying myself with more industry data but I can safely say that the reason for Africel having a dominant market position has more to do with its commercial strategy than its technological position. Data bundling and packaging reasonable voice tariffs sets the competition apart. Data is forming a significant portion of the subscriber's ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and it will soon constitute 60% of overall revenue. In conclusion, our perception can often distort the reality on the ground