At the end of the first quarter there were 11.56 million mobile phone users in Portugal, 1% more than in the previous quarter and 8.6% more than in the first quarter of 2005. At the end of March the mobile service penetration rate stood at 109.8%, above the European Union average of 101.9%.
There were 9.319 million holders of pre-paid cards at the end of March, representing 80.6% of all users, and it was this group that made the largest contribution to the growth in the terrestrial mobile service in the first quarter of the year, with a rise of almost 4%.
In the same period there were 2.239 million customers with subscription plans, making up 19.4% of all customers.
During the first three months of this year, 1.59 billion calls were made by mobile phone users, 2.5% less than in the previous quarter but 5% more than in the same period of 2005. At the same time, mobile customers received over 1.6 billion calls, a fall of 2.4% compared to the previous quarter and a fall of 4.4% year-on-year.
67.3% of calls were made within a single operator network, while calls to fixed lines made up 8% of all calls originating from the mobile network.
Fixed-mobile calls, making up 9% of all calls terminating on the mobile network, again saw one of the biggest quarterly and annual falls, dropping 4.1% and 5.5% respectively.
The number of conversation minutes on the mobile network also fell in the quarter, to 3 billion minutes, but rose year-on-year by 8.1%.
The average length of calls continues around 112 seconds, with subscribers making on average around 46 calls every month, of which 31 were within the caller's own network.
Finally, there was another significant rise in the number of text messages being sent - 2.61 billion SMS. This gives an increase of 54.2% compared to the previous quarter and can be attributed to customers signing up to promotional campaigns being run by mobile operators. During the quarter, each customer sent an average of 75 SMS, compared to an average of 49 in the quarter before.
Consult:
- Postal services https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=277884
