SIM cards active fall in the first quarter compared with the end of 2014 – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

The number of active SIM cards in the mobile service fell 1.7% to 16.455 million at the end of the first quarter from the previous quarter, but rose 0.8% year on year, today released the regulator.

                     

                         According to ANACOM, of active cards, 12.8 million, or 77.7% of the total, were actually used in the first quarter.

The regulator shows that the MEO continues to be the main provider, with 47.5% of active SIM cards, followed by Vodafone with 31.8% and then the US, which despite having a share of 18.9%, was the only provider to increase the number of cards, managing to strengthen its share by 0.5 percentage points.

The volume of customer revenues, excluding mobile integrated service revenues bundled with fixed services, totaled some EUR 369 million at the end of March, falling 19.6% year on year, being the average monthly revenue per subscriber average of 9.6 euros.

ANACOM also highlights that the use of prepaid tariff plans is declining, and 54.3% of mobile cards were associated with prepaid plans, 10.8 percentage points less than in the same period, due to increased penetration of rate multiple play (offers several services) part of the mobile service.

The actual users of services typical of mobile broadband as video telephony, data transmission, broadband, mobile TV, among others, came to about five million, an increase of 12.6% year on year, and accounted for 38.8% of total mobile stations with actual use.

This development is associated with increased access to the Internet via mobile phone, which rose 25.3% due to the expansion of bundled offers and the growing penetration of smartphone .

On the other hand, the residential use of the Internet access service via mobile phone reached 45.5%, while the penetration smartphone reached 55.7%, and there are five million residents in Portugal who use these devices, says ANACOM, citing data from Marktest Telecommunications Barometer.

Users of text messages service (SMS) sent messages less 12.3% over the first quarter 2014, which is due to the emergence of alternative communication forms.