The Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Mr Joe Anokye, has announced that the MTN Zone bundle product by MTN Ghana will soon be back.
This comes after MTN Ghana suspended the service on April 5, 2023, due to a review of the bundle offer in line with the Significant Market Power (SMP) directives applied to the telecom operator in June 2020, not to be the lowest priced in any offer in the industry.
A statement from MTN Ghana said they were “engaging and collaborating with the regulator as we seek alignment on a revised Data Zone Bundle to be reinstated as soon as possible.”
At a press briefing on SIM Registration Exercise and the SMP in Accra on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, Mr Anokye said MTN Ghana failed to comply with SMP directives.
He said it was found that for a number of price points, the MTN Data Zone Bundle was the lowest in the market. Therefore, they were “directed to discontinue the product”.
However, he disclosed that MTN Ghana had submitted a revised data zone bundle which meets the regulatory requirement.
“MTN has since submitted a revised data zone bundle which has been approved by the authority. It is our expectation that the product will soon be available,” Mr Anokye assured.
Significant Market Power (SMP)
Significant Market Power (SMP) is a concept in market competition relating to the dominance of an operator in a particular market.
In Ghana, the National Telecommunications Policy, 2005 (NTP’05) established that SMP would be deemed to exist for an organization providing telecommunications services that control at least 40% of a relevant market segment.
When a network operator is classified as SMP, regulatory intervention is needed to prevent the dominant operator from abusing its position in the market and to offer an opportunity to correct the imbalances in competition in the marketplace.
MTN fits the definition of a Significant Market Power (SMP) in the retail mobile voice, data and SMS markets with a market share of 46%.
Hence, MTN was formally declared SMP in October 2020, and the NCA placed seven remedial measures.