Towards Evidence-based ICT Policy and Regulation
which offers evidence of the dynamism of this sector and its large contribution to the national
economy. From 62 thousand million in 2006, the mobile telephone sector recorded receipts of just
under 149 thousand million in December 2009. As for aggregate turnover in the telephone sectors
in Benin, from 113,158 million FCFA in 2007, it increased to 159,719 million FCFA, rising 31.2%. This
increase is notably due to the reforms in the mobile telephone sectors following the crisis observed
in the sector in July 2007.
In developing countries and especially in Benin, keeping in mind the direct and indirect provision
of ICT to their daily lives, users, notable mobile telephone users, devote a significant part of their
budget to it. In fact, as the following table indicates, mobile telephone users dedicate on average a
little more than 3,000 FCFA per month to the consumption of mobile telephone services. In March
2009, this consumption climbed to 3,998 FCFA.
Table 8: Average income per GSM subscriber in 2009 per operator.
Operators
March-09
June-09
Sept-09
Dec-09
MTN
4 994
4 311
4 615
5 609
MOOV
3 368
3 401
3 363
3 342
BBCOM
5 417
5 612
3 711
3 909
GLO
2 377
2 140
1 967
1 930
LIBERCOM
3 836
2 761
2 383
2 761
ARPU
3 998
3 645
3 208
3 510
Source: ATRPT (2010).
Investment in the telephone sector on 31 December reached 158.980 million FCFA compared to
87,998 million in 2007, a growth of 147%, which as a matter of course promotes the growth of
diverse services and related jobs. The considerable investment volume in the mobile telephone
sector in 2008 is due to the set-up of a fifth GSM operator (Glo Mobile Bénin).
Table 9: Evolution of annual investments (in millions of FCFA).
2006
2007
2008
2009
Fixed Operator
1 854
3 358
4 150
362
Mobile Operators
21 483
84 640
208 716
158 618
Total Investment
23 337
87 998
212 866
158 980
Source: ATRPT (2010).
The positive impact of telecommunication was confirmed by econometric works. As was showed
recently through a study in various emerging countries (Leonard Waverman et al.), a developing
country which had an average of 10 supplementary points in terms of the mobile telephone
penetration rate compared to another otherwise identical country, would have seen their GDP per
capita increase by 0,59% between 1996 and 2003 in comparison. This result was confirmed in Benin
by the work of Yai (2009) on ICT and economic growth since it has shown that the total number of
telephones has a positive effect on the economic growth of Benin. Indeed, an increase in the
telephone penetration rate of one percentage point impacts positively on economic growth by up
to 13.75%. The same result was found by Van et al. (2008) on a micro-economic measure of the
impact of telecommunication based on economic growth.
Mobile telephony has become a means of payment without close contact and plays a crucial role in
remote transactions. For this purpose, new services, notably micro-payment or m-payment, have
been developed in Benin banking companies (Diamond bank, BOA, etc.).
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