At the end of June 36.5% of users had access to the Internet with speeds equal to or greater than 100 Mbps, which compares with only 25.5% in 2015. On the same date 63.2% had speeds over 30 Mbps and for up to 20 Mbps the percentage rose to 94%.
In total, the number of those with fixed access to the Internet in Portugal reached 3.26 million at the end of the 2nd quarter in 2016, 1.8% more than in the previous quarter and 8.6% more than in the same quarter in the previous year. The largest contribution to growth in the number of accesses came from optical fibre (FTTH / FTTB), which grew 6.8% in this quarter (60 thousand accesses), followed by LTE technology at a fixed location, which rose 6.4% in the 2nd quarter (+14 thousand accesses).
The main Internet access technology for fixed broadband was cable (one third of all accesses), followed by ADSL, with 30.4% of total accesses. Third place was Internet over optical fibre (FTTH / FTTB), which represented 29.1% of accesses, followed by LTE at a fixed location with 7.1%.
As regards mobile broadband, the number of users with actual use increased 2.5% in relation to the previous quarter and 8% over the same period last year, to reach 5.68 million.
At the end of the 2nd quarter of 2016, penetration of Internet access services stood at 31.5 per 100 inhabitants, in the case of fixed access, and 54.9 per 100 inhabitants for mobile access with actual use. The penetration of fixed broadband service (residential customers) was 66.1 per 100 private households and 45.5 per 100 conventional dwellings.
It is estimated that at the end of the 2nd quarter, around 97.2% of Internet access service customers using fixed broadband purchased their service within a service package.
MEO's share of fixed accesses was 42.5% (a decrease of 3.5 percentage points compared to the same quarter last year), followed by the NOS Group with a share of 37% (up 1.5 percentage points) and Vodafone with 16.1% (up 3 percentage points).
As regards active mobile broadband customers, MEO’s share was 43% (0.8 percentage points less than the corresponding period), followed by NOS with 30.8% (up 4.5 percentage points) and Vodafone with 25.9% (down 3.6 percentage points). Of note is that in April 2016, Cabovisão and Onitelecom launched commercial mobile broadband offers.
Broadband Internet access traffic increased by about 2.7%, mainly due to the rise in fixed broadband traffic (up 2.4%), which represented 95.6% of the total. Traffic generated by mobile Internet accesses increased by 10.1% in the quarter, representing 4.4% of the total.
The average monthly traffic for fixed broadband Internet access was 58.2 GB. The traffic generated per mobile broadband customer with actual use was 1.55 GB per month (8.7 GB per month in the case of tablet/PC).
Revenues from fixed Internet access service stand-alone and from bundles of services which include this service amounted to around 834.5 million euros in the first six months of 2016. Revenues from the mobile Internet access service totalled 166 million in the first six months of 2016.
Consult the statistical report:
- Internet access service - 2nd quarter 2016 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1394304
