Digicel PNG Still Leads on Towers as Vodafone PNG Revenue Jumps 32%

Vodafone PNG grew revenue 32% in the six months to December 2025, according to its Fiji-listed parent Amalgamated Telecom Holdings. In the year to June 2026, Digicel Pacific’s income fell 10.2% to A$593 million, owner Telstra reported. Digicel still has the bigger network by tower count. Vodafone is growing faster.

No regulator publishes current market shares by operator. The National Information and Communications Technology Authority‘s 2025 indicators release, issued in December 2025, gave no operator breakdown. Every subscriber and share figure in this article is the companies’ own.

Digicel: bigger network, smaller income

Telstra’s annual report for the year to 30 June 2026 put Digicel Pacific’s income at A$593 million, “including the impact of the kina devaluation.” In constant currency, income fell 1.8%, which Telstra attributed to “lower PNG ARPU,” its measure of average revenue per user. On Exepreneur’s calculation, the A$ decline implies prior-year income of about A$660 million.

The decline had shown up at the half. Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland told analysts in February that “Digicel Pacific reported EBITDA declined 22% to $139 million” in the six months to December, with the prior period flattered by an earn-out release. Underlying growth was 1.7%, according to Telstra’s results transcript.

For the full year, Telstra reported Digicel Pacific EBITDA down 10.4%, or A$34 million. Stripping out one-off balance sheet releases and a prior-year earnout adjustment, and holding currency constant, EBITDA rose 4%, according to the same report.

Telstra does not disclose Digicel’s subscriber numbers. Digicel’s footprint is the clearest number it has: more than 1,200 towers, according to TelecomLead’s 15 October report on its tower deal with Telikom. Business Advantage PNG reported in January 2025 that Digicel had built 115 new towers and upgraded 96 to 4G since 2022, and covered more than 80% of the population.

The company has also been without a permanent PNG chief executive. Tarik Boudiaf, who took the role in July 2024, stepped down, PNG Haus Bung reported on 12 May. Digicel Group chief financial officer Brett Goschen, who ran Digicel PNG from 2016, is acting as interim chief executive. Exepreneur found no announced permanent successor.

“Digicel PNG plays an important role in connecting people across the country,” Telstra International chief executive Roary Stasko said, according to PNG Haus Bung.

Vodafone: faster growth, still building

ATH’s half-year announcement to the South Pacific Stock Exchange, dated 25 February, reported group revenue of F$564.1 million, up 21%, and net profit before tax of F$41.3 million against F$22.3 million a year earlier, an 85% rise. “Vodafone PNG delivered a standout result, with revenue up 32per cent,” ATH said.

For the nine months to March 2026, ATH’s net profit after tax was F$52.0 million against F$16.4 million, the Fiji Times reported on 18 June, with growth “largely driven by” PNG. ATH does not publish standalone Vodafone PNG profit or EBITDA.

Vodafone PNG’s chief executive Pradeep Lal told Business Advantage PNG on 31 March that the network had about 2 million subscribers, 93% of them on smartphones, and 800 sites built since 2022 across 22 provinces. He said Vodafone carries 55% of PNG’s total data traffic. That figure has not been independently confirmed.

His own parent’s chief executive gave a lower count. ATH’s Ivan Fong said at the October 2025 annual meeting that Vodafone PNG had “crossed about a million in customers,” the Fiji Times reported. The two figures, five months apart, may measure different things; neither company has said.

“We remain committed to rapid expansion and are targeting 1,200 sites within the next 18 months,” Lal said. If Vodafone hits that target by about September 2027, its site count would match the tower figure cited for Digicel today.

Fong has said the business is not yet self-sustaining. Vodafone PNG is “going through its customer acquisition and ramp up phase, so we’ve got a way to go to becoming sustainable,” he said, according to the Fiji Times.

The market they are splitting

PNG had 4.3 million mobile subscriptions in 2025, according to NICTA figures cited by Development Policy Centre researchers in June. Subscriptions count SIM cards, not people. Lal put national mobile penetration at 46%. His Digicel counterpart at the time gave a lower number a year earlier: “Our market penetration rate is at around 30 to 35 per cent,” Boudiaf told Business Advantage PNG in January 2025. The two estimates have not been reconciled.

Coverage has gone backwards. NICTA’s December 2025 release said population mobile coverage “declined from 86% in 2022 to 77% in 2024.”

Pricing has diverged. Devpolicy researchers reported in June that Digicel’s prices in 2025 were “unstable and unpredictable,” Telikom made no changes, and Vodafone held its core bundles while adding K10 for 6GB, K20 for 12GB and K25 for 15GB from January 2026. Vodafone also sells 1GB overnight for K1, according to the same research.

A new competitor may be coming. A court ruling on 24 April 2026 cleared the way for Starlink to be licensed in PNG, the Devpolicy researchers reported.

Rivals sharing towers

The coverage race is turning into a sharing arrangement. Vodafone and Telikom signed PNG’s first infrastructure-sharing deal in late August, Developing Telecoms reported. Digicel and Vodafone signed a tower-sharing licence around 8 September, and Digicel and Telikom followed on 15 October.

“This agreement is a practical step towards delivering better outcomes,” Goschen said of the Vodafone deal, according to Developing Telecoms. The first shared site went live at Minj in Jiwaka, a Vodafone tower now carrying Digicel, the publication reported on 22 October, with Baiyer River next.

Parliament wants more. A parliamentary committee chaired by Marsh Narewec has recommended making tower-sharing mandatory under the ICT Act 2009, The National reported on 3 November. Narewec told the paper the route mattered less than the result.

At each shared site, the coverage gap between the networks closes. A Vodafone customer at Minj and a Digicel customer at Minj now use the same mast.

The SIM rule both must meet

Both operators face the same compliance task. A 10 March statement from the ICT Ministry on PNG’s draft SIM rules, issued by acting minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr, said all subscribers aged 18 and over “will be required to hold a valid SevisPass Digital ID,” with enforcement phased in. The regulation has not been gazetted, and no deactivation date has been set, according to the ministry’s statement.

A rule that disconnects unverified SIMs would cut subscriber counts across the market. Which network loses more depends on customer bases neither company has disclosed.

Digicel PNG or Vodafone PNG: who is winning

Digicel leads on towers, with more than 1,200 against Vodafone’s 800 sites. Vodafone leads on growth, with PNG revenue up 32% in a half-year and a self-reported 55% of data traffic.

Telikom chief executive Amos Tepi welcomed the contest in August, according to Developing Telecoms.

The figure that would settle the contest is one no one publishes: subscribers by operator, counted the same way. Until NICTA releases that breakdown, the next hard number is Telstra’s half-year result, due in February on this year’s timing, which will show whether Digicel’s PNG ARPU decline has stopped.