The Netherlands Authority for Consumer and Markets (ACM) today published the market figures of the fourth quarter of 2013. In the Telecom Monitor, ACM compares the figures in 2013 with those in the same quarter in 2012. The Telecom Monitor shows the trends in mobile services, fixed telephony, broadband, television, and business network services, and is based on data coming from the main market participants in the telecom industry.
Henk Don, Member of the Board of ACM, adds: “Our telecom monitor reveals that mobile data usage in 2013 grew tremendously, while the number of text messages decreased considerably. Another remarkable conclusion is that, in terms of subscription figures, cable internet has equaled internet over the copper network.”
Mobile services: data usage increases by half, text messaging decreases by a third
Mobile data traffic continued to grow, and was 33.9 petabyte (33.9 billion megabyte) in 2013, which is an increase of 50 percent compared with the previous year. The number of text messages dropped from 7.8 billion in 2012 to less than 5.3 billion in 2013. In 2013, mobile voice traffic was almost 23 billion minutes, which is an increase of 2 percent compared with the previous year. In the fourth quarter, almost 10.8 million mobile devices had internet access. The majority of these devices (10 million) were smartphones. The rest include laptops and tablets with mobile internet connections. In late-2013, the total number of mobile connections was 21.5 million.
Fixed telephony: number of voice minutes decreases despite increased number of connections
In late-2013, there were approximately 6.4 million fixed connections, compared with 6.3 million in late-2012. Compared with late-2012, Dutch telecom company managed to retain its position, while the market shares of cable companies UPC and Ziggo increased. The market share of telecom company Tele2, however, decreased. Total fixed voice traffic in 2013 was 20.1 billion minutes, which was 5.7 percent lower than 2012.
Turning point in broadband: cable internet equals internet over the copper network
In late-2013, more broadband subscriptions over cable were taken out than those over DSL (copper network). While the number of DSL subscriptions decreased by 136,000 in the previous year, the number of cable subscriptions increased by 147,000 over the same period. Both infrastructures thus have 3.1 million connections. Together with fiber-optic connections, total connections in 2013 were almost at 6.8 million. KPN remained the largest provider in this market. Over a period of one year, the share of high-speed broadband subscriptions (30 Mbps or higher) has increased from 35 percent to 42 percent.