Access to the Internet through mobile access increased 2.5% in the 1st quarter of this year, with the traffic generated by mobile phones (which represents 41.9% of mobile internet traffic) rising 8.8% in the same period. The largest use of mobile broadband has been driven by the increased in the number of smartphone users, which in the period under analysis corresponded to 7 out of 10 mobile phone users, according to the Marktest Barómetro de Telecomunicações (Telecommunications Barometer).
In total, the number of users who actually used mobile broadband internet reached 5.5 million in the 1st quarter, 0.3% more than in the previous quarter and 10.1% in the same quarter last year. In total, 5 million users accessed it through mobile phones and 549 thousand access it through a tablet/PC. The average user consumption/month was 1.42 GB.
As regards shares of active mobile broadband customers, the MEO customer share was 43.6%, followed by NOS with 29.9% and Vodafone with 26.4%. In the same period, NOS increased its share by 5.2 percentage points, while MEO and Vodafone shares fell 0.9 and 4.3 percentage points, respectively.
If we consider mobile internet traffic, NOS had the highest share (37.2%), followed by Vodafone and MEO, with 34.3% and 28.5%, respectively.
As far as fixed broadband was concerned, the number of accesses increased 1.9% relative to the previous quarter and 9.2% over the same period, to 3.2 million. It is estimated that at the end of March around 96.7% of customers accessing the Internet using fixed broadband had acquired the service as part of a service package.
The main Internet access technology for fixed broadband continues to be cable, with 33.6% of access, followed by ADSL with 31.8% of access, fibre optic with 27.7%, and fixed LTE with 6.1%. All access technologies grew in the period under analysis, except for ADSL.
As regards shares, MEO had 40.8%, followed by NOS with 35.4% and Vodafone with 17.3%.
As regards fixed access shares, and for the same period, MEO went down by 4.1 percentage points (43.1%), the NOS group increased its share by 1.9 points (36.9%) and the Vodafone share rose by 3.2 percentage points (15.5%).
The average monthly traffic for fixed broadband Internet access was 57.9 GB.
The revenue from stand-alone fixed Internet access service and bundles of services which include this service totalled around 416.6 million euros in the 1st quarter, 16% more than in the same quarter last year. As far as revenue from the mobile Internet access service, this reached 81.7 million euros in the period under analysis, a value 10.2% greater than in the same quarter last year.
Consult the statistical report:
- Internet access service - 1st quarter 2016 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1389318
