Ghana’s telecoms regulator moves to curtail MTN’s market share

MTN’s large market share in Ghana may be about to get smaller.

Ghana’s telecoms regulator, the National Communications Authority (NCA), has said it will implement “specific policies” to curtail the local dominance of MTN, Africa’s largest telecoms company.

The regulator added that the move is necessary “to ensure a level-playing field” and it comes after MTN was declared a “significant market power” by the regulator—a move which requires it to create more policies for competition among operators.

As of March this year, MTN has dominated both voice and data subscription rates among users in Ghana, accounting for more than double of its nearest competitors, Vodafone and AirtelTigo. Some of the measures to bridge the market share gap will include setting minimum and maximum prices for calls, texts, mobile internet and mobile money services.

But perhaps the bigger concern for Ghana’s regulators—both with the NCA and the Bank of Ghana—will be that due to the rapid growth of mobile money services in the country, led by MTN Money, the company may end up dominating the country’s push for wider financial inclusion. Ghana has been Africa’s fastest-growing mobile money market in recent years.

In aiming to curtail MTN’s market share, Ghana is taking a different approach to Kenya where Safaricom dominates the market, thanks to its ubiquitous M-Pesa mobile money service. Despite previous suggestions of possible regulation to avert market monopoly, Safaricom remains the dominant force in the East African country. In the absence of tighter regulation, Kenya’s second and third largest mobile phone operators have been forced to merge to create a stronger challenger to Safaricom.

Safaricom’s M-Pesa is the dominant payment system of Kenya and it is estimated up to 40% to 50% of the country’s GDP passes through the platform, Ghana may be trying to avoid having a similar scenario with MTN Ghana, whose parent MTN Group is based in South Africa.