59% of mobile phone user have a smart phone

Smartphones are top of the preference list for mobile phone users, with more than half of mobile phone subscriptions for the high tech phone.

According to a survey by Commission for Communications Regulation (Comreg), from April to June this year, the number of smartphone subscriptions jumped more than 14% on the previous 12 months, with about 59% of all mobile subscriptions being a smartphone.

The total number of text messages sent by mobile users in Ireland in the three months surveyed was more than 1.88bn, down 23.2% on the same period last year.

The number of multimedia messages sent was down 6.1% compared to the previous year.

Most people spend about €25 a month on their phone subscription, down about €2 on the same period last year.

Comreg reported there were 5.6m mobile phone subscriptions at the end of June, which was marginally up on the first few months of the year.

Broadband subscriptions (fixed and mobile) decreased by 0.3% on the previous quarter and stood at 1.7m broadband subscriptions at the end of June.

The estimated household (fixed and mobile) broadband penetration rate at the end of June was 67%.

The number of fixed phone subscriptions was up 5.2% on last year, to reach 1.57m.

Average broadband speeds continue to increase, and while fixed voice traffic has declined, mobile voice traffic rose this quarter. Fixed voice traffic has gone down 5.4% while mobile traffic increased by 2.4% compared to the previous quarter.

There were 5,626,484 mobile phone subscriptions at the end of June, an increase of 0.1% on the previous quarter.

Ireland’s mobile penetration rate for the quarter was 122.0%.