There
was an increase in the total mobile phone subscriptions by 7.5% at the
end of December 2024 compared to the same period last year, with their
number reaching 7,506,870 subscriptions, according to statistics issued
by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
The
number of postpaid mobile phone subscriptions increased by 33.9% to
reach 2,391,951 subscriptions and prepaid mobile phone subscriptions
decreased by 1.6% to reach 5,114,919 subscriptions, including 3,889,244
subscriptions from operators and 1,225,675 subscriptions from resellers.
The number of active mobile
broadband subscriptions increased by 7% to reach 6,445,261 subscriptions
by the end of December 2024. Meanwhile, total fixed internet service
subscriptions increased by 2% by the end of December 2024 to reach
574,730 subscriptions, compared to the same period in 2023.
The
fixed broadband internet subscription service (more than 256
kilobytes/second) reached 573,028 subscriptions by the end of December
2024, an increase of 2% compared to December 2023, while the number of
subscriptions via fixed narrowband internet (less than 256
kilobytes/second), which includes telephone calls and some leased
internet lines, decreased by 1.3% to reach 1,702 subscriptions.
Statistics
indicated a decrease in the total fixed telephone line subscriptions by
the end of December 2024 by 24.8% to reach 435,596 subscriptions
compared to the end of December 2023. As for analogue fixed-line
subscriptions, which include prepaid and postpaid, their number
decreased by the end of December 2024 by 20.9% to reach 66,834
subscriptions compared to the same period of the previous year.
The
number of fixed-line subscriptions connected to Internet Protocol (IP)
technology reached 318,478 subscriptions during the same period,
recording an increase of 7.4% compared to the end of December 2023.
Statistics showed that the number of subscriptions to digital network
channels for integrated services decreased by the end of December 2024
by 0.2% to reach 49,634 subscriptions, while the number of public
telephones fell by 98.1% to reach 127 and the number of fixed wireless
subscriptions decreased by 25.6% to reach 523 subscriptions.
Among
governorates, Muscat ranked first in the number of fixed analogue
telephone lines, with a percentage of 49.63% at the end of December
2024, followed by Al Batinah North Governorate with 11.46%, and Dhofar
Governorate with a percentage of 10.03%, while and the percentage of
lines in the remaining governorates reached 28.88%.