At the end of 3rd quarter 2013 (3Q13), there were 16.7 million mobile stations in Portugal eligible to use the service, increasing 0.3 percent from the previous quarter. Of these, 13 million were actually used, accounting for 78.3 percent of total mobile stations. Excluding cards/modems and mobile stations associated with machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, there were about 11.8 million active mobile stations/user devices with actual use in 3Q13.
At the end of September, the mobile service had a penetration rate of 159.6 per 100 inhabitants. However, the penetration rate reported for mobile stations with actual use was 125 per 100 inhabitants with a rate of 112.5 per 100 inhabitants reported if cards/modems used for mobile broadband Internet access and M2M devices are excluded.
There were around 4.4 million mobile broadband users reported in the quarter, an increase of 5.2 percent over 2Q13 and an increase of 9.1 percent compared to the same quarter of 2012. Users of these services accounted for 33.7 percent of total mobile stations with actual use.
The volume of conversation minutes originating on mobile networks increased by 2.3 percent compared to 2Q13 and by 6.2 percent year-on-year. The reported increase in traffic is explained, in particular, by a jump in off-net traffic, which increased by 15.5 percent over the previous quarter.
The average number of minutes per mobile station with actual use (excluding cards/modems and M2M equipment) was an average of 159 per month. Of these, and on average, 119 minutes were on-net minutes and 24 minutes were off-net, 7 were associated with calls to the fixed network, 3 with calls to short/non-geographic numbers and 6 with calls to international networks.
Average duration per call originating on the mobile network (excluding cards/modems) was 147 seconds per call. An average of 65 calls were made per month and per active mobile station with actual use (excluding cards and M2M equipment). Of these, about 44 were made to the network of the originating provider and 12 to networks of other mobile providers.
In this period, users of text messaging service (SMS), representing 60.5 percent of total mobile service stations with actual use (excluding cards for Internet access and M2M devices), sent about 6.8 billion text messages (in line with the previous quarter and 3.9 percent less than in 3Q12). Each user of this service sent an average of 318 messages (322 in 3Q12), representing about 11 messages per day. There were also 29.7 million value-added messages sent, representing 0.4 percent of total messages.
Meanwhile, although the number of users of MMS, video-calls and Mobile TV services remains relatively low, unusually during this quarter, traffic from these services saw increases of 9.6 percent in the case of multimedia messages and 3.3 percent in the case of video-calls. Mobile TV service traffic declined 14.2 percent compared to 2Q13.
In 3Q13, the average number of users of the international roaming service outside Portugal represented 8.3 percent of total mobile stations with actual use (excluding cards and M2M devices).
Roaming out traffic, and particularly Internet traffic, increased over the same quarter of 2012. This trend may be associated with the entry into force of the third Roaming Regulation, which imposed a reduction in voice and SMS prices and, for the first time, stipulated a price reduction for data services (Internet and multimedia messages).
Roaming in traffic increased, as is customary at this time of the year. Compared to the same quarter of 2012, there were also significant increases in Internet traffic.
Accumulated revenues derived from services provided to end-users in 3Q13 were reported at about 1.529 billion euros, representing a year-on-year decline of 10.2 percent.
Consult the statistical report:
- Mobile Services - 3rd quarter 2013 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1182939
