The latest telecoms market share report published by the National Communications Authority (NCA) indicates that as of February 2026, MTN Ghana controls 81.29% of the country’s mobile data subscriptions and 72.12% of voice subscriptions.
Per the figures, MTN’s current data subscription level grew marginally from 81.27% in December 2025, while on the voice side, it saw a marginal drop in market share from almost 73% (72.92%).
But its two rivals, Telecel Ghana and AT Ghana, are still far behind at 14.5% and 4.2% respectively on the data side, while on the voice side they have 20.7% and 7.2% respectively.
Deeper Revelation
The numbers also reveal something deeper; a complete collapse of the June 2020 regulatory intervention when MTN Ghana was named a significant market power (SMP) to set the tone for a number of regulatory measures to be implemented with the view to correcting the grave market imbalance and protecting consumers’ right to choice.
Six year ago, when MTN was named SMP, it had 55% voice market share and 67% data market share. But just two years after the implementation of measures to curtail MTN and allow the other players to catch up, MTN rather stretched its lead by about 20 percentage points on the voice side and almost 13 percentage points on the mobile data side, clearly indicating that either the SMP measures were not being implemented properly, or they were failing woefully.
From then till date, the market leader has been stretching its lead in spite of all the regulatory constraints such as denying it 30% of its earnings from interconnect fees from other telcos, compelling it to collapse its affordable data bundles, and obligating it to do network sharing just to help the others catch up.
Investment neutralizes SMP constraints
In the midst of the regulatory constraints, MTN has proven that investment into the network to boost quality of service, intentionality in responsiveness to customer complaints, and delivery of value beyond price are what win and keep consumers, and not necessarily lower prices and marketing gimmicks.
Through heavy, consistent and strategic investment into its network, therefore, MTN has completely made its SMP designation and the subsequent impeding measures of no effect, as it keeps growing in leaps and bounds while its competitors, for whom the SMP measures were meant to create an advantage, have kept losing market share.
The foundation of MTN’s dominance hasn’t been marketing, but rather investment into infrastructure to improve network quality and create value for customers across its various portfolios such as MTN Business, Chenosis API Marketplace, Mobile Money and even customer services and CSR.
MTN Ghana’s competitive strength is anchored in its extensive infrastructure, including 4G population coverage of almost 100% (99.2% ) as of December 2025. When MTN was named SMP, it was estimated that about 70% of all calls in Ghana terminated on MTN. But six years on, and MTN keeps giving Ghanaians reasons why it is the network of choice because it has enough 4G coverage for all mobile devices in the country.
This is important because Ghanaians are fast ditching traditional voice calls for WhatsApp and other VoIP calls, and that is where MTN’s near-universal 4G coverage assures consumers of the most stable experience.
5G, the final straw that breaks the camel’s back
Speaking of strategic investment, way back in 2021, a year after MTN was named SMP, the company announced that it had provisioned over 1,300 (1,322) sites across the country for 5G rollout in 2022. But the regulator, under the auspices of the then minister refused to grant MTN the license for 5G due to its SMP status.
The government then decided by policy to use 5G as a tool to correct the market imbalance that the SMP measures had failed to correct. The spectrum for 5G was therefore awarded to a sole independent wholesaler called Next-Gen Infraco (NGIC) to rollout a shared 5G platform for all operators to join in. This was to save every player the burden of having to come up with hard cash to get their own spectrum.
NGIC was granted a 10-year exclusivity right for the rollout of 5G in Ghana between 2024 and 2034. This means any company that wants to offer 5G services to its customers must go through NGIC.
But, unlike the other telcos, MTN had already done the heavy lifting in terms of its futuristic investment for 5G as mentioned above. So it decided not to join the shared arrangement but rather push for a standalone license to rollout 5G.
In 2025 government changed hands, and one of the very first statements the new sector minister, Sam George, made was that the SMP regulatory intervention had failed because it was used as tool to punish MTN rather than to correct the obviously skewed market structure and create value for all. That was a clear signal the SMP intervention was about to be completely collapsed.
To relieve MTN of the regulatory constraints and its impact on quality of service and price burden on customers, the minister did three things: allowed MTN to restore its affordable data bundles, granted MTN technology neutrality (like the others already had), and also gave them more spectrum for 4G to enable them improve quality of service.
Then in February this year the NCA finally issued a notice to NGIC informing them that by policy decision and in accordance with law, its license will be amended to remove the exclusivity rights to promote competition in the public interest. This means fresh spectrum will soon be auctioned for 5G.
On the back of that notice from NCA, the sector minister also announced that government had decided that the entire industry will launch commercial 5G services together to prevent what happened with 4G when MTN went far ahead of the pack and gained the market advantage that led to it being named SMP. The vision behind the policy is to ensure 70% nationwide 5G coverage by next year when Ghana turns 70.
While industry watchers are criticizing the vision as over ambitious and untenable, MTN is already relishing the moment and positioning itself for 5G rollout soon, which would then become the last straw that breaks the camel’s back in this whole SMP fiasco that started collapsing long before even majority of Ghanaians knew about it.
