At the end of 2nd quarter 2012 (2Q12), there were 16.6 million active mobile stations in Portugal associated with post-paid, prepaid and combined/hybrid tariff plans. This represents a decline of 0.8 percent over the previous quarter but an increase of 1.7 percent compared to the same quarter of 2011 (2Q11). This quarter marks the fourth occasion in the last two years that a quarterly decline has been reported in this indicator, while the rate of annual growth rate reported was the second lowest in the last decade.
Approximately 13.3 million active mobile stations have seen actual use, representing 80 percent of the total and corresponding to an increase of 1 percent compared to 1Q12 and an increase of 1.5 percentage points compared to the same period of 2011. The variations reported this quarter are explained by the evolution in prepaid and hybrid plans.
Excluding cards/modem used to access the Internet with mobile broadband, there were about 12.3 million active mobile stations/user devices with actual use reported in 2Q12, 1.3 percent more than in 1Q12.
At the end of June, mobile service penetration was reported at 156 per 100 inhabitants, although, the penetration rate of mobile stations with actual use was reported at 125.4 per 100 inhabitants. According to Marktest's Barómetro de Telecomunicações (Telecommunications Barometer) 92.9 percent of Portuguese residents were mobile subscribers.
There were around 4 million mobile broadband users in Portugal in 2Q12 making actual use of the service, reflecting a decline of 1.1 percent over the previous quarter and an increase of 2 percent compared to 2Q11. Of this total, only 1 million are users with cards/modem. Since 1st quarter 2010, the number of mobile stations associated with this particular service has declined by 18.9 percentage points.
In this period, 2.2 billion calls were made, 1.5 percent more than in the previous quarter. On average, 59 calls were made each month per active mobile station with actual use, excluding Internet access cards for mobile broadband. Out of the total calls made, approximately 43 were made to destinations on the network of the originating provider and 10 to networks of other providers of the same service.
The volume of conversation minutes originating on mobile networks totalled 5.3 billion, representing an increase of 0.2 percent compared to 1Q12 and a decrease of 1.7 percent compared to the same quarter of 2011. On-net traffic was the primary driver of the annual decline, offsetting the effect of the increase in international traffic and the growth seen in mobile-fixed traffic.
Each mobile station with actual use was responsible for an average of 144 minutes per month, 2 minutes fewer than in the previous quarter. Of these, 114 minutes were on-net, 17 were off-net, 5 were made up by calls to the fixed network, 3 by calls to short/non-geographic numbers and 5 by calls to international networks. The average duration per call originated on the mobile network in this period was 146 seconds.
Users of the text message service, representing 59.5 percent of total mobile stations with actual use, sent almost 7 billion text messages over the quarter, which corresponds to an increase of 6.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2011. Of these, 21.5 million were value-added messages, i.e. 0.3 percent of total messages sent. On average, each user sent 320 messages per month, corresponding to about 11 messages a day.
Number reported in terms of users and traffic associated with MMS and video-calls was relatively low, maintaining the recent trend.
In the case of MMS, the trend is growing, with users of the service sending approximately 39.3 million MMS, 4.5 percent more than in the previous period. Video-call volumes maintained a downward trend, with about 511 thousand video-calls made, 3.4 percent fewer than in 1Q12.
Unusually, the use of Mobile TV grew significantly. There were around 34.7 thousand users of the service reported in the quarter, which represents an increase of 4 percentage points over the previous quarter. About 2.5 million Mobile TV sessions were reported, which corresponds to an average of 24 sessions per user per month, almost double the number of sessions recorded in 2Q11.
During the quarter being reported, the balance of roaming traffic (roaming in traffic and roaming out traffic) was negative in the case of the traffic volume in minutes, with a decline of approximately 9 thousand minutes. Roaming out traffic exceeded roaming in traffic by 12.6 percent. Indeed, the 2nd quarter of each year is typically characterized by a surplus of this balance. The average number of users of the international roaming service outside Portugal represents 6.5 percent of total mobile stations used.
Consult:
- Mobile Services - 2nd quarter 2012 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1136741
