The Portuguese communications market remains highly dynamic, largely due to high levels of coverage by fixed and mobile high-speed networks. In combination, these networks (allowing download speeds of 30 Mbps or more) cover 90.9% of households – this ranks Portugal in 8th position among the 28 countries of the European Union. In terms of mobile broadband, LTE networks (Long Term Evolution) provide 94.3% coverage, which is one of the highest levels in the EU28. The same applies to the coverage of next generation networks in rural areas (36.9% in 2015), which compares with an average of 9.4% in the EU28.
Consequently, and because of strong levels of competition in the sector, penetration of broadband Internet continued to rise (fixed 30.3% and mobile 53.2%), while data traffic also increased (30.1% in the case of fixed broadband and 38.2% in the case of mobile broadband). The increased consumption of mobile data was also driven by increased penetration of smartphones, which reached 66.7%, with 5.5 million users of this type of device in Portugal as at the end of 2015.
Changes occurring in the market's structure in recent years have created conditions to accelerate convergence, particularly between mobile and fixed infrastructure; this has led to the strengthening of convergent offers, enabling the appearance of quadruple-play and quintuple-play bundles. In 2015, 80% of Portuguese households had a bundle of services and 35% acquired bundles of converged services. The increase in the use of fixed and mobile broadband and other services, such as cable television, and even voice services, has been taking place in large part due to the growth reported in the sales of bundles of services.
The availability of high-speed and very high-speed networks also enabled the emergence of new businesses such as cloud computing and big data, representing a business opportunity for telecom companies.
In the postal sector the situation is different. Due to the increasing use of electronic communication over traditional postal items, postal traffic continued to decline, falling by 3.3% in 2015. In contrast, areas of activity associated with e-commerce, such as parcel traffic are growing, but are not yet sufficient in size to compensate for the reduction in the traditional business.
These constraints have led postal operators to seek new areas of activity and new opportunities that allow them to achieve the growth that the internal market does not currently offer, specifically the internationalisation and promotion of e-commerce.
In this context, ANACOM will continue to work to ensure an appropriate regulatory environment for the development of the communications sector. This Plan is intended as an instrument in accomplishing this environment.
