Jordan’s mobile subscribers surpass 9m mark

AMMAN — The number of mobile phone subscribers in the Kingdom exceeded 9 million at the end of the third quarter of 2018, or 88.59 per cent of the population, the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) said on Monday.

The total number of Internet subscribers in Jordan amounted to 9.4 million, or 93 per cent of the population, while 321,133 subscribers had a fixed phone service, constituting 3.14 per cent of the population, TRC Chief Commissioner Ghazi Jbour said at a press conference. 

Telecommunication companies also employed 4,014 people in 2017, while the total number of workers in the entire ICT sector, including in the service and retail sectors, reached 171,424 people, reported the Jordan News Agency, Petra.

The total investment volume in telecommunication services in 2017 amounted to JD150 million, and the financial surplus transferred from the commission to the Treasury reached JD412 million between 2015 and 2018, Jbour said.

The sector’s revenues also increased by 2.4 per cent in 2017 when compared with 2016, while the revenues of mobile phone companies in the first half of 2018 rose by 4.4 per cent, compared with the same period in 2017, he added.

The commission received 3,794 complaints in 2018, 3,225 of which, or 85 per cent, have been settled, according to Petra.