(Business in Cameroon) - Between July and September this year, the Cameroonian branch of French telecom operator Orange achieved a total turnover of €76 million (CFA49.7 billion), the group informs. This represents its best quarterly revenue since 2016, results standing between €66 million (CFA43.2 billion) and €74 million (CFA48.4 billion) over the past two years.

With this performance, Orange Cameroon confirmed its position of new leader of the telecom market in terms of turnover, a position grabbed from competitor MTN (€146 million compared to €145 million) in the first quarter of 2018. MTN Cameroon’s financial statements showed a further year-on-year revenue decline by 8% at the end of September 2018.

Moreover, while Orange Cameroon was able to stabilize customer base at 6.6 million subscribers in Q3 2018, MTN Cameroon attracted 300,000 new subscribers and its customer base officially peaked at 6.9 million at the end of September 2018, compared with 6.6 million subscribers at June 30.

This battle for subscriber numbers in favor of MTN (which has however seen its customer base shrink by almost half in 5 years) may not have a major impact on the new configuration of the Cameroonian mobile market at the end of 2018, since Orange will likely still be the market leader.

Financial statements at the end of September 2018 just published by Orange Group showed that the local subsidiary has a turnover of €222 million (CFA145.3 billion). Considering that Orange Cameroon's lowest turnover since 2016 is €66 million, the company is on the right track to exceed, at the end of 2018, its turnover of €281 million (just over CFA184 billion) achieved at the end of 2017.

Such a feat will be very difficult for MTN Cameroon, whose turnover has been decreasing steadily for almost two years, and led the company to trim staff.  This operation would see 10% of employees dismissed, the company’s top management recently announced.

Nexttel, the country's 3rd largest mobile operator, is caught in a serious leadership crisis within its board. This situation, which is detrimental to the competitiveness of the company controlled by the Vietnamese Viettel, is, according to internal sources, the main factor of the delay in the launch of the 4G technology and the Mobile Money service, which have become real growth drivers on the highly competitive mobile telephone market in Cameroon.

Brice R. Mbodiam