Myanmar’s hyper-competitive mobile market is even more fierce after Ooredoo introduced a promo offering data at MMK6 (less than half a cent) per megabyte and Telenor responding with an MMK5 per megabyte rate just hours later.

Ooredoo earlier this week cut its pay-as-you-go internet rates from MMK10 per megabyte to MMK6 per megabyte to match Telenor’s, the Myanmar Times said.

The price cut brings rates down to $4.50-$5.40 per gigabyte.

Myanmar, which opened to foreign competition last year with the launch of mobile services by Ooredoo and Telenor, has seen the number of mobile connections jump from one million to more than 18 million in just three years, 40 per cent of which are mobile broadband.

During the first quarter Telenor added three million customers (resulting in a total base of 6.4 million subscriptions) and took its total number of network sites to 1,772.

State-owned MPT recently said it has about 8.4 million mobile connections, while Ooredoo reported 3.3 million customers at the end of April. Ooredoo claims it now covers 45 per cent population and aims to boost that to 75 per cent by the end of this year.

MPT has a 52 per cent market share, followed by Telenor with a 31 per cent share and Ooredoo with a 18 per cent share, according to GSMA Intelligence.

With low data tariffs and inexpensive smartphones, about 80 per cent of Ooredoo’s users have smartphones, while about 60 per cent of Telenor’s customers have smartphones.

The country of 54 million has a SIM penetration rate of just 28 per cent.