The Norwegian ecom market held steady through the financial crisis in 2009, increasing by just under two per cent. Mobile services are increasing, while a steadily increasing number of households are turning away from fixed telephony according to the “The Norwegian Ecom Market 2009” report issued by the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority.
The Norwegian ecom market has revenues of nearly NOK 33 billion. While the number of providers remains at a stable, high number, there were still ten fewer providers of mobile telephony in 2009 compared with the peak year of 2007.
“We may now be seeing a consolidation of the number of providers in the Norwegian market, something we have been looking for for some time,” says NPT Director General Willy Jensen, noting with satisfaction that the ecom market appears to be doing well even in challenging economic times.
Telenor’s share of total revenues also fell in 2009, though only by 0.9 percentage point. Network Norway increased by 0.9 percentage point.
Technology changeover? For the first time more households have fixed broadband than fixed telephony. Not since 1980 has the number of “ordinary” telephony subscriptions been lower, while the percentage of residential customers with fixed broadband continues to climb - albeit slowly - and is now 70 per cent.
“It’s exciting that consumers are using more modern methods of communicating, but I would have liked to have seen the share of residential customers adopting broadband rise faster,” says Jensen.
More and more broadband subscribers are choosing fibre. Broadband via cable TV is still growing the fastest, while broadband via the phone line (xDSL) fell also in 2009.
Consumers continue to choose mobile services, and both traditional use of mobile and new mobile broadband uses continued to rise in 2009. At the turn of the year the number of subscriptions for mobile broadband passed the half-million mark, with residential subscriptions amounting to 55 per cent. However, residential customers accounted for more than 80 per cent of data traffic.
In the first quarter of 2010 the robust growth of mobile broadband continued, and more than 50,000 new subscriptions were taken out. The number of subscriptions is now approaching 550,000.
Less voice – more SMS Total traffic for all types of telephony began to fall in 2001, and has since dropped by as much as 37 per cent. Much of the decrease is due to the fact that calls through dial-up Internet (ISDN) have been reduced to practically zero, and that Internet services are now primarily delivered via xDSL, cable TV, fibre and mobile broadband.
However, ordinary voice calls have also fallen by a total of 11 per cent since 2001 and two per cent from 2008 to 2009. Each subscriber talked 20 per cent less on fixed-line telephones in 2009 compared with one year earlier. However, mobile calls continued to increase, but did not compensate for the entire drop in fixed telephony.
Consumers continue to embrace SMS, and today each subscriber sends an average of 103 messages each month – one more each compared with 2008. SMS prices continue to fall, and are now on average 30 øre per message. Mobile traffic revenues amount to an average of 68 øre per minute, a decline from 74 øre in 2008.
The Norwegian ecom market held steady through the financial crisis in 2009, increasing by just under two per cent. Mobile services are increasing, while a steadily increasing number of households are turning away from fixed telephony according to the “The Norwegian Ecom Market 2009” report issued by the Norwegian Post and Telecommunications Authority.