The Cameroonian subsidiary of the South African operator of Mobile Telecommunications Networks (MTN) has announced a drop in its 2015 operating turnovers by 4.6 per cent, compared to the year before, when it had made sales worth CFA 241.1 billion.

The mobile phone company blamed this lackluster performance, which saw its market share drop by 3.2 percent during the period under review on a reduction of its customer portfolio, to the tune of 800,000.

In the same vein, MTN’s 2016 financial report suggested a decline of CFA 21.4 billion in profit margins before tax and depreciations, representing -6.6 base points.

However, the operator reported an improvement of 67.5 percent in data services, with its electronic holdings playing a leading role.

According to statistics from the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART), MTN holds 57.04 percent of market shares, against 36.8 percent for the French firm Orange, 4.66 percent for the Vietnamese company Viettel (Nexttel) and 1.4 percent for Cameroon Telecommunications (CAMTEL, local), in a country of 22 million inhabitants and a mobile penetration rate of 80 percent.