Metfone officially launched its telecom services on 19th February, 2009 in Cambodia nationwide.
"Met" in Cambodian language means "friend". By lauching services under this brandname, we desire to build a truly Cambodian company for Cambodian.
At the time of Metfone launching, threre were already 07 other mobile operators, three out of them, including Mobitel, Mfone and TMIC, came to Cambodia around 10 years ago. They almost mastered this market. For years, Cambodia market has been led by Mobitel (a joint venture between Cambodia Royal Group and Millicom) with more than 50% market share. However, except little expansion by Mfone to rural areas along the national roads, other operators concentrated their network in urban and main cities only. Most of them chose microwave transmission to develop their network. As a result, Cambodia infrastructure, which was already fragile due to being destroyed by years of war, was limited to less than 2,000km fiber optic cable and around 1,700 BTS. Almost rural areas, where 80% Cambodia population stay, were out of the coverage. Therefore, Cambodia was still lagged behind the region with around 29% mobile penetration. Over reliance on mobile development has caused the detriment to fixed lines. For years, the total subscribers of fixed line almost stood at the same figures of 40,000. Internet services, almost dial up, were provided in some main cities only but at the highest rate in the world. Both fixed and Internet penetrations were less than 0.5%.
How about us now?
According to statistics from Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPTC), Metfone had taken over Mobitel to lead the market in 2010. In other words, Metfone has jumped from the eigth to the first position, gaining 46% market share in mobile services.Especially, in early 2010 (afrer only one year from launching), Metfone has dominated Cambodia’s fixed and Internet markets with 90% and 60% market share respectively. During January 2010 to April 2011, Metfone’s subscribers have grown at 300% to reach more than 6 million whereas Metfone’s revenue has been increased by 4.7 times. These figures are significantly impressive, in the context of the economy downturn.
Metfone’s network has been expanded to remote and isolated areas with roughly 5,000 base stations (covering 98% population, 100% islands) and 16,000 km fiber optic cable (FO) (covering 100% districts, 95% Villages). These outstanding figures have contributed to the increase Cambodia infrastructure penetration by 3-7 times (from around 120 BTS/150 km FO/ 1 million people to320 BTS/ 1,100 km FO/1 million). Since Metfone provides services, telecom prices have been driven down 2-4 times, penetration of all kinds of services has been increased by 2-10 times (mobile penetration up from 29% to 80%, broadband Internet Internet from 0,2% to 2% and fixed from 2% to 15%).
Metfone has contributed around USD 40 million in all kinds of taxes and fees to Cambodia’s national budget and 1% to the country’s GDP growth; generated more than 7,000 jobs (including jobs for poor and handicapped people) with average remunerations of USD250 a month. Metfone has also allocated millions USD to support the country governance (by video conference system), the Education and Sports (by free Internet connections in schools, football sponsor) and conducted social programs for Cambodian people (free services to reunite people with their lost relatives, free operations for cleft/lip palate and heart patients, etc…).
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