The number of main telephone accesses reached almost 5.1 million at the end of the first half of 2019 (1H19), 1.5% up on the same period of the previous year. The growth (+76,000 equivalent accesses) was mainly due to the increase in VoIP/VoB accesses (+356,000 accesses), which includes accesses supported by optical fibre and cable TV networks. Accesses supported on alternative networks to the traditional network (analogue and ISDN accesses) represented 74% of main telephone accesses.
In terms of traffic, the number of minutes originating on the fixed network maintained its downward trend (as witnessed since the beginning of 2013), falling by 16.2% over the first half of 2018. Declining traffic is associated with increased penetration of quadruple/quintuple play (4P/5P) packages, which include mobile services with free calling to all networks, and increasing penetration of over-the-top (OTT) services.
In the first half of the year, the penetration rate of the main telephone accesses reached 49.3 accesses per 100 inhabitants, with accesses installed at the request of residential customers reaching 89.1 per 100 classic households.
Regarding modes of access, the number of customers of the direct access fixed telephone service was around 4.1 million at the end of 1H19, 2.2% up on the same period of the previous year. This growth was associated with the growing popularity of bundled offers that include fixed telephony.
On average, per month, 70 minutes were consumed per access, of which 49 minutes were fixed-to-fixed calls, 8 minutes were fixed-to-mobile calls and 4 minutes, international calls.
At the end of 1H19, MEO accounted for 42.3% of customers. The NOS Group’s share was 36.2% and Vodafone was the provider with the third largest share of direct access customers (17.6%). Compared to the same period of the previous year, MEO’s and NOS’s shares of direct access customers fell by 0.1% and 0.8%, respectively, and Vodafone’s share increased by 1.1%.
Consult the statistical report:
- Fixed telephone service - 1st half 2019 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1483901
