By Sachin Kumar
DOHA: Prepaid mobile connections dominate Qatar’s telecom market with more than 80 percent share in the market. Of the total 3.3 million connections in Qatar, prepaid subscriptions were about 2.78 million, or 84 percent, in 2014.
Postpaid connection’s share was about 16 percent (or 523,775 subscriptions) in the same year, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications (ictQatar) data.
“Prepaid connections have always been popular in Qatar and will remain so because of various reasons. One the major reasons is large chunk of expatriates, especially unskilled workers,” said a senior official of a telecom company. “These workers come here for comparatively short period of time and hence prefer to buy prepaid connections,” he added.
Also prepaid connections give its users the flexibility to recharge connections by low amount. In Qatar users can recharge prepaid connections for as low as QR10.
In the past, prepaid connections have usually had edge over postpaid connections in terms of market share in Qatar. Prepaid connections enjoyed around 87 percent share in the telecom market in 2013 as these connections stood at around 2.86 million. Postpaid connections were around 13 percent of the total connections in the same year.
In 2012, prepaid connections had 86 percent share while postpaid connections got 14 market share. A year before that prepaid connections had around 88 percent share while postpaid connections’ share was around 12 percent in 2011. Total mobile phone subscriptions in Qatar grew about 44 percent to 3.31 million in 2014 from 2.3 million in 2011.
“I have been using prepaid mobile connection since last two years because it gives me a sense of control over my expenses,” said a Sri Lankan expatriate working for a construction company.
“I have fixed a quota for monthly recharge for my connection. Once I approach my monthly limit, I scale down my phone conversations. In case of a postpaid connection, there is always a risk of over talking on phones to my relatives and friends,” he added.
Telecom companies adopt selective approach while selling postpaid connections.
They prefer white-collar, high-income professionals for postpaid connections as they usually have higher talk time limits.
The Peninsula
