Optical fibre technology continues to drive growth in fixed broadband in Portugal. In the first quarter, the number of optical fibre accesses in Portugal increased by 8.7%, to represents 19% of total accesses - equivalent to about half a million lines.
Despite not reporting any growth this quarter, ADSL remains the main broadband technology, used by 41.7% of the service's users; ADSL is followed by cable modem, which grew 1.3% in the quarter, with a share of 37.5%.
In total, there were 2.626 million fixed broadband accesses in Portugal at the end of March, 2.4% more than in the previous quarter and 8.1% more than at the end of March 2013. It is estimated that about nine out of ten customers acquired the fixed broadband service as part of a bundle of services.
Grupo PT's share of fixed broadband was reported at 50.1%, about 0.4 percentage points less than in the previous quarter, while Grupo ZON Optimus (NOS) had a share of 35.5%, 0.8 percentage points below the previous quarter. Vodafone reached a share of 7.8% in the quarter, up 1.3 points from the previous quarter, and was the provider that, in net terms, captured the largest number of subscribers.
In the same period, broadband Internet traffic increased by about 4.8%, mainly as a result of the growth reported in fixed broadband (increasing 4.5%), representing approximately 96.6% of the total. The traffic generated by mobile accesses increased by 14.9%.
There were 3.9 million users who actually used mobile broadband to access the Internet (an increase of 0.2 points over the previous quarter). The growth in mobile broadband was mainly driven by an increase in the number of smartphones.
As regards provider shares of active mobile broadband customers, MEO had a share of 46.8% of customers, followed by Vodafone and Grupo ZON Optimus with 30.9% and 22.1%, respectively.
At the end of 1st quarter 2014, total revenues from the fixed Internet access service (stand-alone and bundles of services that include the fixed Internet access service) totalled 276 million euros, an increase of 10.4% over the same period of 2013.
Revenues from the mobile Internet access service totalled 86 million euros in the first quarter of 2014, 1.5% less than reported in the same period of 2013.
Consult the statistical report:
- Internet Access Service - 1st quarter 2014 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1248452
