Transparency International Georgia (TI) has published a report titled “Internet Ownership in Georgia,” which relies on the Georgian National Communications Commission’s figures for its statistics. However, the mobile internet subscriber figures in the report have been reproduced inaccurately, with discrepancies ranging between 11% and 15%. From the Commission’s point of view, it is important for the trends of telecommunications market development to be reported accurately and to reflect the real picture. We would therefore like to correct the figures that have been inaccurately published by TI, risking to mislead the public.

The TI report shows the distribution of mobile internet subscribers with significant errors (p.25, diagram 14). Specifically, the TI report states that in 2018, Magticom accounted for 44.9% of mobile internet subscribers, while in reality, the 2018 GNCC report clearly states that Magticom had 33% of the mobile internet subscribers, meaning that there is an 11.9% discrepancy between the reports. The TI report also states that Silknet accounted for 34% of the subscribers in 2018, while the real number as per GNCC data was 38.5% (4.5% discrepancy). As for Veon Georgia, the TI report states that it had 13.1% of the subscribers, while according to GNCC, the company’s share was 28.5%, meaning that there is a 15.4% discrepancy between the two reports.

According to official figures of GNCC, the distribution of mobile internet subscribers in 2018 was as follows: Magticom – 976,000 subscribers; Silknet – 1,132,000 subscribers; Veon Georgia – 836,000 subscribers. Thus, there were significant errors in TI’s figures for all three operators.

The TI report also contains data about revenues obtained by companies from tenders between 2015 and 2019. This section of the report does not specify what type of service it is considering – fixed internet, telephone internet or broadcast transit. It is important to specify the service, as Magticom only offered mobile communication services until the end of 2016, while Silknet only began operating on the mobile service market in 2017 after purchasing Geocell. Thus, without specifying the service, the report cannot provide the public with accurate information.

GNCC has deemed it necessary to issue the above-mentioned clarifications, as it is important for an organisation that publishes reports about the internet market to use accurate and verified figures.