Number of mobile phone subscribers reach 83 million

ISTANBUL

The number of mobile subscribers in Turkey increased to 82.9 million as of the third quarter of 2019, rising from 80.1 million at the end of 2018, data from the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) have shown.

The mobile subscriber penetration rate also climbed to 101.1 percent as of end-September from 99 percent in 2018.

Excluding the population aged between 0 to 9, the penetration rate rises to 115.4 percent, the authority said in a report on the local market.

The mobile voice traffic stood at 205.4 billion minutes in the first nine months of 2019, according to BTK data.

Monthly talk time averaged 444 minutes per subscriber in Turkey, which is ranked as the first among European countries.

In terms of monthly talk time, Turkey has captured the top spot since 2012. Across Europe, monthly talk time on mobile phones averaged 247 minutes.

The BTK report also showed that there were a total of 11.5 million fixed-line subscribers.

The number of broadband users reached 77.1 million (14.1 million fixed-line subscribers and 63 million mobile) in January-September, rising 4.4 percent on an annual basis.

As of end-September there was a total of 76 million 4.5G subscribers in the country, but the number of active users was 45.8 million because some people’s mobile phones or SIM cards are not compatible with 4.5G, which was introduced to the local market in April 2016.

The length of the fiber optic network increased by 7.5 percent from 345,275 kilometers in the third quarter of 2018 to 371,304 kilometers in the third quarter of 2019, according to the report.