UK: OFCOM reports a continued fall in fixed voice revenues and 17 million broadband lines

[ofcom] key trends emerging this quarter from data collected on the UK telecommunications sector.

Fixed
Total UK fixed voice call and access revenues continued to fall, by 0.9% during Q4 2008 to £2.20bn, with BT’s share falling by 0.3 percentage points to 59.7%.
The total number of exchange lines decreased by 119k during Q4 2008, with BT reporting a 469k fall in its lines.
Total fixed call volumes fell by 738 million minutes (2.1%) to 34.6 billion during the quarter, with a year-on-year fall of 3.4 billion minutes.

Internet
At the end of 2008 there were 17.3 million residential and small business UK broadband connections, an increase of 2.1% on Q3 2008.
There was a year-on-year increase of 1.7 million connections (11%). BT’s retail market share of broadband connections fell by 0.1 percentage points during Q4 2008 to 26.3%, with Virgin Media’s share at 21.3%

Mobile
Total revenue across the UK’s four largest mobile operators declined by 2% in Q4 2008 compared to the previous quarter, reflecting a 3% fall in revenue from calls and other charges and a 2% fall in messaging revenues. There was an overall year-on-year fall in revenue of 1%.
Total call volumes across the four operators grew by 2% quarter-on-quarter, driven by a 3% growth in call volumes to UK numbers.
Outgoing international call volumes increased by 6% compared to Q4 2007 (0.2%) while the number of calls made while roaming abroad increased by 10%.
SMS and MMS volumes grew by 11% in Q4 2008, higher than any other quarter in 2008.
The number of post-pay subscribers increased by 2% in Q4 2008, with the number of pre-pay subscribers remaining virtually unchanged (up 0.04%). Post-pay subscribers accounted for 48% of total subscribers in Q4 2008, compared to 45% in Q4 2007.

Telecommunications Market Data Update Q4 2008