TIRANA, June 8 – Smartphone internet applications are gaining ground against traditional mobile phone calls and text messages. A report by the country’s electronic communications watchdog shows airtime dropped by an annual 15 percent while the number of text messages was down by 6.8 percent in the first quarter of this year.
The data come at a time when 3G and 4G internet access on mobile phones and USB/modem rose by a sharp 44 percent to about 1.4 million in the first quarter of the year.
“Albanian subscribers are increasingly using alternative services as the quality of broadband service improves and replacing traditional call and text message services which is also a result of offers by mobile operators on smartphones,” says Altin Rrapaj of the electronic communications authority.
Smartphone applications such as Skype, WhatsApp, Viber are being increasingly used by Albanian subscribers despite a sharp drop in traditional call and text message rates in the past few years.
