There were 11.488 million subscribers to Mobile Telephone Services in Portugal as of the end of 2005 - an increase of 2.8% on the previous quarter and 10.5% compared to 2004 when there were 10.362 million users.
Of the total registered, the number of subscribers with contracts rose to 2.157 million, roughly 19% of the total, while the number of subscribers using pre-paid cards rose to 9.291 million or 81% of all users.
The rate of penetration at the end of the year reached 108.7%, remaining above the EU average of 97.2%.
In the fourth quarter of 2005, 1.63 billion outgoing calls were registered, 3.6% down on the previous quarter but 6.2% up on the previous year. At the same time there were 1.65 billion incoming calls, 3.5% less than the previous quarter but 5.6% more than the same period of the year before.
Of the calls registered between October and December, the vast majority were within the network (1.095 billion calls) while the number of calls made from the fixed to the mobile network fell by 5.5% compared to the last quarter of the previous year.
The number of conversation minutes on the mobile networks increased 0.3% compared to the previous quarter and 11.6% compared to the same quarter of 2004, reaching a total of over 3 billion minutes.
The number of minutes recorded from calls terminating on the mobile network also passed 3 billion, showing a slight increase of 0.1% compared to the previous quarter, and an increase of 11.3% compared to the same quarter last year.
The average length of calls originating from the mobile network saw no significant change: 111 seconds for outgoing calls and 109 for incoming calls. The average length of international calls remains higher: 163 seconds for outgoing calls and 182 for incoming calls.
In the quarter each subscriber made on average 47 calls a month of which 32 were within their operator's own network.
In the same period there was another significant rise in the number of text messages sent, reaching a total of 1.69 billion messages - a rise of 9.6% on the previous quarter and 147% on the same period last year. This rise can be put down to clients signing up to promotional campaigns being run by operators.
The average number of messages sent by each subscriber increased from 46 in the third quarter to 49 in the last.
Consult:
- Postal services https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884
