Mobile network subscribers exceed 16.14 million

Anacom has just released data on the mobile service, with figures for the third quarter of 2010, which show that the number of users continues to grow, exceeding 151.7 per 100 inhabitants, which is due to the doubling of active cards held by the same user and also to subscriptions to mobile broadband services.

According to data from the market regulator, at the end of September there were approximately 16.14 million active cards, linked to the various types of pre and post paid tariffs, which represents a growth of 1.7% compared to the previous quarter. . The number of calls and minutes spent on conversation has also gone up.

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The numbers of cards per 100 inhabitants project Portugal to third place in Europe in terms of service penetration, well above the European average of 123.2%. ahead of Portugal is only Finland and Greece.

anacom board

Prepaid tariffs continue to dominate, representing almost 72% of the total, while post-paid subscriptions represent 15.9% of the total, with almost a quarter (24.6%) not having actual use (which may be linked to broadband cards and modems). It is also necessary to rely on the combined / hybrid plans, which are in the option of 12.2% of users of mobile services.

Anacom points out in a statement that, if we exclude the number of cards / modem effectively and exclusively used for mobile broadband Internet access, the number of active cards with actual use reached around 11.9 million, which allows us to account for the existence of around 4.24 million cards associated with this Internet connection equipment.

Mobile broadband access on phones and / or computers and other devices (such as Tablets) is now available to 10.1 million users, but this quarter the number of users “who actually used characteristic 3rd generation services (video-telephony, broadband data transmission, mobile tv, etc …), reached about 3.6 million “, a drop of 4% compared to the previous period.

3G frame

The Anacom report also shows that of the users who registered broadband traffic in September, only 34.8% used cards or modems, which indicates that phones are increasingly assuming themselves as one of the privileged means for these connections.

It should also be noted that other 3G services, namely video calls and mobile TV, have lost users. In this quarter, 1.3 million video calls were made (11.7% less than in the previous quarter) and that mobile TV dropped 18%, being used by only 1.6% of the total customers with actual use of 3G, which held 1.4 million sessions.

As we have already mentioned, in terms of voice calls and minutes of conversation the trend is upward. 2.26 billion calls were recorded, 4.6% more than in the previous quarter, which may correspond to an increase in seasonal traffic related to the summer vacation period, which also increases international calls . The number of conversation minutes originating on mobile networks totaled around 5.3 billion, 8.3% more than in the previous quarter.

SMS and MMS also registered growth, with more than 6.626 billion written messages and 34.5 million MMS being sent. Of the total text messages (SMS), 15 million are value-added messages.

On average, each card / user made 63 monthly calls, with 44 for the destination provider and 11 for another provider of the same service.

In terms of market shares, TMN continues to lead with 44%, followed by Vodafone with 39.3% and Optimus with 15.4%. Zon is the fourth largest operator with 0.8% of the market, followed by CTT with 0.4%.

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