Dutch mobile market revenues down again

Posted on Nov 17, 2011 in Technology | 0 comments

Dutch mobile market revenues down again

The Dutch mobile industry generated EUR 1.52 billion in service revenue in the third quarter of 2011, showing a decrease of 2.9 percent compared to the same quarter last year and a slight drop of 0.3 percent compared to the second quarter of 2011. According to Telecompaper’s quarterly mobile market monitor, the main reason for the annual decrease in revenue remained the strong decline in voice revenue due to MTA tariff cuts and competition, which was not quite compensated by the growth in non-voice revenue. Non-voice services, consisting of data and SMS, now contribute 37 percent of total mobile service revenue, but these are not growing fast enough to offset fully the erosion in voice revenues.

Leading market research firm Telecompaper has updated its five-year outlook for the Dutch mobile industry. Telecompaper has improved its outlook for the Dutch mobile market, mainly due to changes in mobile termination rates. A court ruling in August provided for a slower reduction in the rates, which should have a positive influence on forecast revenues in 2012 and 2013. However, the ruling will have little impact on 2011, and we continue to believe the Dutch market will show a decline of around 3 percent to EUR 6.0-6.1 billion in service revenue this year. For the period 2010-2015, the Dutch market is now expected to show a CAGR of 0.1 percent, which means service revenues will be relatively stable at around EUR 6.3 billion in 2015. Telecompaper previously expected a CAGR -0.4 percent over the period.

“Voice and SMS revenues are more and more under pressure, and VoIP is an emerging threat,” said Alejandra van de Roer, Telecompaper senior research analyst and author of Telecompaper’s quarterly mobile market monitor for The Netherlands. “It will be very difficult for operators to counteract these negative trends, and even the recent changes to tiered data pricing may prove insufficient.

In terms of overall service revenue, Vodafone outperformed the market in the third quarter and was the only operator to show higher revenues on both an annual and quarterly basis. Mainly KPN lost revenue market share to Vodafone.

In terms of mobile SIMs (including MVNOs), the Dutch market saw an increase of 5.2 percent annually to 21.0 million at the end of September 2011. As a consequence mobile market penetration increased from 120.4 percent in Q3 2010 to 126.1 percent in Q3 2011. KPN’s market leader position fell to 47 percent of all subscribers, while Vodafone saw its market share increase to just over 28 percent, and T-Mobile rose slightly to 25 percent.

More at The Dutch Daily News

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