Internet use and mobile penetration continues to grow in Armenia; however, in the last two years, the growth has decelerated, and future growth is more so dependent on the development of the telecommunications sector than the country’s overall economic growth. Indicators show that in the last year the growth almost ceased and stopped roughly at the poverty line. That is, it’s not realistic to wait for a sharp increase in users from this socioeconomic group. Rather, a qualitative shift among current users is noticeable. For instance, there are more users accessing the internet from their mobile phones — an increase of about 40,000; meanwhile, the number of overall mobile subscribers in one-and-a-half years has increased only by 10,000.

Below is a snapshot of the main indicators for the first half of 2016. All data was taken from the companies’ official reports published on their websites (second quarter of 2016, if not noted otherwise. In brackets is the growth as compared with data from the fourth quarter of 2014).

Mobile Subscriptions

The overall number of mobile subscribers was 3,434,396. The growth since 2014 is 10,160.

Breakdown by operators:
Vivacell-MTS: 2,084,162 (-61,304)
Beeline Armenia: 863,562 (+86,384)
Ucom (formerly Orange Armenia): 486,672 (-14,920)

Internet Use

Main figures:

Broadband internet subscriptions: 261,784 (+15,395)

Mobile broadband internet subscriptions: 231,698 (- 25,912)

Users of internet through mobile phones: 1,661,946 (+39,229)

Overall mobile internet subscriptions: 2,155,428 (+28,712)

Figures by internet service providers:

Armentel (Beeline Armenia)
Broadband internet subscriptions: -141,837 (data from first quarter of 2016) (-8,519)  
Mobile broadband internet subscriptions: 42,644  (-1,484 )      
Users of internet through mobile phones: 337,895  (+22,957)   

Vivacell-MTS
Mobile broadband internet subscriptions: 68,231 (data from first quarter of 2016) (-14,526)
Users of internet through mobile phones: 1,059,078 (+6,680)

Ucom
Broadband internet subscriptions: -77,954 (data from first quarter of 2016) (+12,352)    
Mobile broadband internet subscriptions: 120,823 (-9,902)    
Users of internet through mobile phones: 264,973 (+9,592 )

Rostelecom
Broadband internet subscriptions: -35,144 (data from first quarter of 2016) (+8,936) 

Interactive
Broadband internet subscriptions: -5,126 (data from first quarter of 2016) (+1,279)

Web
Broadband internet subscriptions: -1,185 (data from first quarter of 2016)

Arminco
Broadband internet subscriptions: -538 (data from first quarter of 2016) (+162) 

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  Samvel Martirosyan                            

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.