ComReg releases quarterly report

The Commission for Communications Regulation today published its latest quarterly report – covering the fourth quarter of 2004 – which highlights a number of key trends in the electronic communications sector.

Total revenues for fixed, mobile & broadcasting markets now stand at an estimated €4bn per annum on an annualised basis. This represents an increase of approximately 5.85% since the last quarter mainly due to growth in mobile revenues.

Mobile phone penetration increased by 6% from 88% to 94%. There are now an estimated 3.78 million mobile phone subscribers in Ireland.

This growth which is predominantly in the prepaid segment may have been influenced by

seasonal factors as the quarter under review covers the Christmas period.

There were over one billion SMS or text messages sent during the fourth quarter, an increase of almost 10% on the previous quarter. This equates to an average of 89 SMS messages per subscriber per month.

Meteor has increased its market share, based on subscriber numbers, to 9% of mobile phone subscribers with Vodafone and O2 having 51% and 40% respectively. During the period

Vodafone launched its 3G service.

In relation to broadband, DSL take-up has increased over the last quarter by over 37% to 114,000, up from 83,000. By the end of 2004, there was a total of 131,550 broadband subscribers.

In the fixed-line telephone sector, there are now approximately 330,000 Carrier Pre-Select (CPS) lines, an increase of almost 10%. 74,300 of these are wholesale line rental or single bill customers.