TELECOMS REVENUES in Ireland continued to decline in the first quarter of the year, according to a market update from the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).
Further growth in broadband subscriptions was not enough to offset a contraction in the overall communications market, with revenues declining by 2.7 per cent to almost €949 million.
ComReg attributed the decline in revenues to the impact of the economic downturn on the sector. This is the seventh consecutive quarter in which revenues have declined.
Total internet subscriptions increased this quarter to 1.6 million, while 1.5 million of these were broadband subscriptions.
Narrowband subscriptions fell by 17 per cent as consumers continued to migrate to broadband subscriptions, both fixed and mobile, which increased by 4.6 per cent.
The total broadband per capita penetration rate in the first quarter reached 33.9 per cent. Excluding mobile broadband, the penetration rate was 22.4 per cent.
Mobile broadband is the fastest growing type of broadband, increasing by 9.7 per cent in the first quarter to more than 500,000 subscriptions, while fixed broadband increased 2.2 per cent and now stands at just shy of one million subscriptions.
Mobile revenues fell by 5.1 per cent to just over €412.3 million.
Eircom’s market share of total fixed-line revenues fell to 67 per cent over the quarter.
Total voice traffic minutes increased slightly by 0.3 per cent compared to the previous quarter to almost 4.6 billion minutes.
Voice-over-broadband (VoB) minutes grew by 8 per cent and now account for 3.7 per cent of total fixed-voice minutes. However, this figure does not include the VoB minutes of unregulated providers such as Skype.
