The state of the telecommunications sector in Tunisia at the end of December 2023, drawn up by the INT, mentioned 5,002,372 subscribers for the incumbent operator, Tunisie Télécom (TT), behind Ooredoo, which had more than 6,729,000 subscribers, and ahead of Orange Tunisie, which was well behind with more than 4,255,000 subscribers.
This refers to the number of RGS-90 mobile subscribers (any SIM card that allows telephony in a fully mobile situation and that has registered at least one activity (making or receiving a call or sending an SMS or MMS) in the last three months),
A month later, in January 2024, and again according to the INT, the independent regulator, TT’s subscriber numbers fell to 4,989,613, Ooredoo stagnated at more or less 6,726,000 and Orange lost a few hundred to 4,238,698 subscribers.
In the same month, TT had a market share of only 30.6%, far behind Qatar’s Ooredoo with 41.2% and ahead of Orange, with a market share of 26%.
Only TND 1.2 billion and still in second place
INT has not yet updated the revenue figures for operators in a market of more than TND 3.678 billion (2022 figure) for 2023.
However, at the end of 2022, TT had a turnover of only 1,288.22 million Tunisian dinars, still behind Ooredoo, which had a turnover of 1,306.4 million Tunisian dinars and remained the sector leader despite a 0.7% decrease compared to the 2022 figure.
Although TT increased its turnover by 2.6%, it was still the silver medalist, with the bronze going to Orange, which was still the best performer among the top three mobile operators with an 8.8% increase in turnover.
Qatar’s dominance is nothing new, but it dates back to at least 2019, as the INT figures show.
The explanation, which TT will never give (Editor’s note: Our old emails will demonstrate this if necessary), could be found in INT’s figures on the evolution of average monthly national mobile voice traffic by operator.
Ooredoo is in 1st place with 150 minutes per month at the end of December 2023, followed by Orange with an average of 137 minutes, and the public TT in last place with just 125 minutes, and the latter are money.
More national calls for Ooredoo, and more international to Orange
TT is in the same position for national One-Net voice traffic (any voice call from a mobile telephony subscription, within the country, with a national mobile operator terminating on the network of the operator from which the call originated), with a monthly average of just 60 minutes per customer, compared with 90 minutes locally with its direct competitor, whose customers consume more voice and therefore pay more for top-ups.
Overall, at the end of December 2023, Ooredoo recorded 403 minutes of talk time, compared with just 328 million at TT, still 2nd in the rankings.
It is also interesting to note that Orange Tunisia subscribers made the most calls abroad (1.3 million minutes at the end of December 2023), while TT subscribers had only spent 0.9 million minutes by the end of December 2023.
These minutes, which of course have to be translated into money, are the result of the commercial policy choices made by each operator, given that the cost of a minute abroad is generally more expensive than a local telephone call.
Could TT have another explanation? To date, the operator has never responded to our requests for an interview or explanation!
