More cells, but Telecoms earn less

Steven Jackson, 
Business Writer

Jamaicans now own more mobile phones – 3.1 million – than there are people in the country.

But for the first time they spent less money on them for the December 2010 quarter than the corresponding period a year earlier, new data from the industry’s regulator, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), show. The OUR collects data as part of its remit, but delays its publication arguably to avoid advantaging competitors.

This decline in the cell market actually hid rising revenues of