In 3rd quarter 2021, there were around 4.3 million fixed telephone service customers in Portugal using direct access - an additional 86 thousand customers (+2.1%) compared to 3rd quarter 2020. The reported growth is consistent with the estimated historical trend and is associated with the growing penetration of bundled offers that include the fixed telephone service.
The penetration rate of main telephone accesses was reported at 51.3 accesses per 100 inhabitants. The penetration rate of accesses installed at the request of residential customers was reported at 95.6 per 100 private households.
Next generation networks were responsible for the growth in the number of accesses. The number of main telephone accesses reached 5.3 million equivalent accesses, an additional 102 thousand accesses versus 3rd quarter 2020. The growth recorded (+2.0%) was due to the increase in accesses supported over optical fibre and cable TV networks (+327 thousand accesses). Accesses supported over next generation networks (FTTH, cable TV networks and mobile networks at a fixed location) represented 83.8% of telephone accesses and in-creased by 4.2 percentage points compared to 3rd quarter 2020.
Meanwhile, there were 14.5 thousand installed public pay-telephones - a reduction of 13.1 percent compared to 3rd quarter 2020, the largest decline since 2012.
The volume of minutes originating on the fixed network decreased by 9.7% compared to 3rd quarter 2020. This decrease contrasts with the increase reported in 3rd quarter 2020 (+6.8%) when the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were already being felt. The pandemic caused a reversal in the downward trend that had been seen since 2013.
By type of call, the decrease occurred mainly in fixed-fixed traffic (-13.3%) and, to a lesser extent, in outgoing international traffic (-9%) and fixed-mobile traffic (-4.6%).
At the end of the quarter, MEO's share of direct access customers was 42%, followed by Grupo NOS with 34.8%, Vodafone with 19.7% and Grupo NOWO/Onitelecom with 3%. NOS, NOWO/Onitelecom and MEO reported shares of direct access customers that decreased by 0.8, 0.3 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively, with Vodafone's share increasing by 1 per-centage point. The level of concentration has decreased slightly but remains high.
Consult the statistical report:
- Serviço telefónico fixo - 3.º trimestre de 2021 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1710692
