The Moroccan GSM Market
In 1999, Morocco had 364,000 subscribers; by the end of December 2005, the kingdom had more than 12 million GSM subscribers. The revenue generated by GSM represented the astronomical sum of 838 million euros per year in 2004.
The market is held by two operators, Maroc Telecom, which represents the largest market share, and Meditel.
It is important to know that landline telephony is not widely used in households. Only 17% of households have a landline (4.47% penetration in the overall population). Conversely, mobile telephony is relatively more developed, since 41.5% of Moroccan households have at least one GSM subscription. Mobile penetration in the population therefore exceeds 33% (latest ANRT study).
The most popular mobile phone services are naturally receiving and making calls. SMS is also very popular due to its low cost (less than one dirham), especially in urban areas where it is used by more than 77% of mobile phone owners.
Other value-added services accessible from a mobile phone (MMS, ringtone downloads, games, paid voice information services, internet browsing and email) currently attract few users (14% for ringtone downloads..., about 0.4% for internet browsing and email consultation) but are all concentrated in urban areas.
It must be said that multimedia services on GSM have only been available for a little over a year and that only a small percentage of users have a mobile phone with advanced technology allowing browsing. However, these niche markets are expanding thanks to the lower costs that the two main operators want to implement.
