The latest data to be released on the fixed telephone service (FTS), with reference to the second quarter of 2009 shows that the number of main telephone accesses installed at customer request stood at around 4.06 million, corresponding to a penetration rate of approximately 38.2 accesses per 100 inhabitants. Compared to the previous quarter, there was an increase of 0.5 per cent in the number of accesses, while year-on-year a decline of 0.1 per cent was reported. The increase seen in the number of accesses was driven in great part by new subscriptions to the multiple play offers of the companies of Grupo ZON/TV Cabo, and did not give rise to an overall increase in traffic.
In this quarter, there were around 34.4 thousand installed payphones, with a decline of 2.4 per cent seen over the previous quarter and a year-on-year decline of 14.6 per cent.
Most of the accesses installed at customer request continued to belong to companies of the Portugal Telecom Group (Grupo PT) operating in these markets. At the end of the quarter these companies held about 66 per cent of all accesses installed at customer request, 1.2 per cent less than at the end of the previous quarter and 3.1 per cent less than a year earlier. During the quarter being reported, Grupo Sonaecom retained second place in terms of share, with 15.7 per cent, while Grupo ZON/TV Cabo saw its share of accesses increase by around 1.5 percentage points, moving up to third place in terms of share of accesses with a share of 7.9 per cent.
There were 3.25 million fixed telephone service customers using direct access, an increase of 1.8 per cent on the previous quarter and an increase of 2.6 per cent on the same quarter of 2008. This trend was significantly driven by packaged offers which combine fixed telephone and cable television and/or Internet as well as the offers from alternative providers based on GSM technology. This is the first time in around 2 years that the number of direct access customers has increased for three consecutive quarters. This growth occurred at the same time as the number of Grupo PT’s direct access customers declined (-1.6 per cent compared to the previous quarter and -4.6 per cent compared to the same quarter of 2008).
Regarding indirect access using pre-selection, the number of customers fell by 7.7 per cent, to 159 thousand in the second quarter of 2009, the lowest level since 2001. Compared to the same period of the previous year, the number of pre-selection customers fell by 28.4 per cent.
With respect to the customers of nomadic VoIP, at the end of the second quarter of 2009 there were around 124.5 thousand active customers, representing a decline of 6.6 per cent over the previous quarter.
Grupo PT’s share of direct access customers has been falling since 2000. In this quarter a further decline was reported of 1.6 percentage points over the previous quarter and 4.6 percentage points over the same quarter of 2008, to 60.7 per cent at the end of the second quarter of 2009. This drop in the share of direct access customers results essentially from new offers based on access technologies distinct from the traditional Fixed Telephone Service, in line with the trend in accesses.
Total voice traffic originating on the fixed network during the second quarter of 2009 totalled around 2.021 billion minutes resulting from 641 million calls.
Compared to the previous quarter, and contrary to the trend seen in terms of accesses installed at customer request and in terms of direct access customers, the volume of minutes and the volume of calls fell by 1.7 and 1.8 per cent respectively. Year-on-year there was also a fall, both in terms of the number of minutes - in the quarter being reported the volume of minutes originating on the fixed network was 2.6 per cent less than the figure recorded for same period of 2008 - and in the volume of calls, which fell by 6.5 per cent over the same period.
As far as traffic in minutes is concerned, the decline in total traffic in comparison to the second quarter of 2008 can be mostly explained by the significant fall in fixed-mobile traffic (-12.6 per cent), as well as the sharp fall in dial-up internet access traffic (down 37.3 per cent) resulting in great part from the strong expansion of internet access using broadband technologies. Meanwhile, in terms of calls, the year-on-year fall in total traffic is in the most part explained by a fall seen in traditional voice traffic.
At the end of the second quarter of 2009, the volume of nomadic VoIP traffic totalled around 70.2 million minutes, representing a fall of 10.8 per cent compared to the previous quarter, resulting from around 14.3 million calls, down 9 per cent on the previous quarter. The weight of this traffic in respect of total traffic fell compared to the previous quarter, amounting to 3.5 per cent in terms of minutes and 2.2 per cent in terms of calls.
In the second quarter of 2009, 10 per cent of total voice minutes were originated through indirect access, 0.8 percentage points less than the figure recorded for the previous quarter and 2.8 percentage points less than the figure recorded for the same quarter of the previous year. Indirect access accounted for 12.8 per cent of the total number of voice calls made during the second quarter of 2009, down around 1 percentage point on the previous quarter and around 3.1 per cent year-on-year.
Finally, it should be noted that in the second quarter of 2009 the companies of Grupo PT continued to lose share of traffic, both in terms of minutes (63.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2009, 1 percentage point below the value reported for the previous quarter) and in terms of calls (64.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2009, 0.6 percentage below the value reported for the previous quarter).
Consult:
- Fixed Telephone Service - 2nd quarter 2009 https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=976078
