Senegal’s Regulation Authority of Post and Telecoms (Autorite de Regulation des Telecoms et des Postes, ARTP) has assessed the impact of mobile number portability (MNP) in the country, one year after its launch on 1 September 2015. According to the regulator the biggest winner to date has been Tigo Senegal, a subsidiary of the Luxembourg telecoms group Millicom International Cellular (MIC), which accounted for 2,122 of the total of 6,337 users indicating their wish to switch in the period. Market leader Orange Senegal hosted a net 1,026 new users, and third-placed Expresso just 716. ARTP’s findings suggest that Orange Senegal lost 2,249 customers to its competitors, Expresso 786 and Tigo 732. Meanwhile, 2,578 MNP applications were rejected because of the unproved identity of the applicant.
While ARTP is keen to trumpet the findings, the number of people embracing MNP is disappointing in a market that stood at over 15.765 million mobile users at 30 June 2016, according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database.