All posts by Fredrik Jungermann

ARPU growth almost always slower than inflation

Tefficient’s 37th public analysis of mobile data development and drivers compares trends across 37 countries worldwide, excluding M2M/IoT from the total bases.

Previous analyses have shown that the pandemic led to a significant increase in mobile data usage. However, the demand for more mobile data has since slowed down. In 2022, Czechia experienced the highest growth rate in mobile data usage, reaching 59%. At the other end of the spectrum, Qatar and Taiwan had relatively lower increases, both below 9%.

Continue reading ARPU growth almost always slower than inflation

Creating convergent service bundles for SMEs

Reference: Analysis, 2023

Operators often face uncertainty when addressing small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Should they treat SMEs like consumers or corporate customers? SMEs, being akin to a close-knit family, is a mass market but could sometimes require a personalised approach. Should operators assign dedicated sales representatives to cater to their specific needs and assemble tailored solutions?

While many operators equate convergence with fixed-mobile services, its scope extends far beyond that. Convergent SME bundles should not be limited to combining fixed and mobile services alone. SMEs have diverse requirements that operators can effectively address, such as switchboard functionality, contact center tools, office software, domain and hosting, cloud storage, cyber security, insurance, and more.

Example from Free (France)
Continue reading Creating convergent service bundles for SMEs

Nordic operator benchmark 2023: A decade of excellence

Reference: Benchmarks, 2023

In its tenth year, our comprehensive business benchmark raised the standard with an extensive range of 964 key performance indicators (KPIs). Covering crucial areas such as revenue, OPEX, CAPEX, headcount productivity, subscriptions & channels, performance, load, quality, and innovation & growth, this benchmark caters to 53 functions across mobile, fixed, and integrated operators.

Exclusively sourced from leading Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Danish operators, the peer group data is of the highest quality. To honor pre-agreed confidentiality requirements, participating operators remain anonymous, safeguarding the privacy of their data.

Tefficient’s benchmark has earned the reputation of being the industry’s best-kept secret. However, its outstanding value has enticed a couple of new participants this year, joining the returning operators who actively rely on the benchmark to drive continuous improvement.

Continue reading Nordic operator benchmark 2023: A decade of excellence

High data usage countries do better on ARPU development than low-usage countries

Tefficient’s 36th public analysis of the development and drivers of mobile data compares the trends of 45 countries globally.

In our previous analyses, we saw that the pandemic led to an increase in the mobile data usage. The demand for more mobile data has since slowed. Czechia experienced the fastest growth in mobile data usage in 2022: 56%. On the other end of the spectrum, Iceland witnessed a decrease in usage. Austria, China, Malaysia and Norway had some increase, but it was below 9%.

Continue reading High data usage countries do better on ARPU development than low-usage countries

Interviewing operators on sentiments towards current and future mobile data monetisation and service bundling

Reference: Analysis, 2022

Tefficient conducted a series of one-to-one interviews with operator executives from various global markets to gain insights into their perspectives on mobile data monetisation and service bundling models, with a focus on current and future trends.

The interviews delved into topics such as the sufficiency of current bucket and unlimited tiered mobile data propositions, the pricing of 5G, the success of speed tiering, and how content bundling can help operators. Experiences from hard bundling, soft bundling (with choice), add-on sales and content aggregation were discussed. Additionally, the interviews explored how operators can design their propositions in a QoE and slicing future where tiering is not limited to volume, speed, and content.

Continue reading Interviewing operators on sentiments towards current and future mobile data monetisation and service bundling

Making sense of operators’ cyber security offerings in 14 countries

Reference: Analysis, 2022

With the growing reliance on internet connectivity, telecom operators have an important role to play in protecting their customers from cyber threats such as fraud and malware. However, as internet usage can also expose users to risks such as the spread of malicious content, identity hijacking, and online slander, it is crucial for telecom operators to provide comprehensive cyber security services and solutions.

The service portfolio and the methods for offering these services can vary greatly between operators. Some are better than others in packaging and upselling cyber security.

Example from AT&T

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the cyber security offerings in 14 different markets, Tefficient conducted a thorough analysis of all of the cyber security offerings from all telecom operators in those markets. The analysis categorised the offerings according to:

Continue reading Making sense of operators’ cyber security offerings in 14 countries

Further slowdown in data usage growth causes positive ARPU development to soften

Tefficient’s 35th public analysis of the development and drivers of mobile data compares the trends of 46 countries from around the world. In our previous reports, we observed that the pandemic drove an increase in mobile data usage. However, during the second half of 2021 and into 2022, the demand for more mobile data slowed.

Greece experienced the fastest growth in mobile data usage, with a 45% increase. On the other end of the spectrum, Qatar, Peru, Malaysia, and Austria saw unusually slow growth rates of just 1-3%.

Continue reading Further slowdown in data usage growth causes positive ARPU development to soften

Nordic operator benchmark 2022

Reference: Benchmarks, 2022

For the ninth year: Comprehensive business benchmark with 895 KPIs covering revenue, OPEX, CAPEX, headcount productivity, subscriptions & channels, performance, load, quality and innovation & growth – for 53 functions of mobile, fixed and integrated operators.

Peer group data exclusively from Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and Danish operators. Due to pre-agreed confidentiality requirements, participating operators are anonymous (and of course their data).

The results demonstrate the value of a region-specific benchmark approach: Nordic operators have global leadership in a wide array of business aspects and a global benchmark would therefore leave them without guidance on how to improve further. In contrast, participating operators now have a great tool to improve their local competitiveness even further.


As every year, the Nordic operator benchmark will be enhanced further based on input from participants. It will run again in January 2023. Read more about the benchmark here.

Benchmarking fibre pricing in Denmark with eight other European countries

Fiberalliancen is a trade association for companies that own, operate and use fibre networks in Denmark. It is a part of Green Power Denmark.

For the second time (the first analysis was done in 2021), Tefficient has performed a comprehensive fibre broadband pricing benchmark covering nine European markets: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland (new since 2021), Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and France.

As part of a press release, Fiberalliancen makes Tefficient’s analysis publicly available. Download it from the right ‘Links’ column. It’s in English.

The release concludes that:

  • Denmark has some of the lowest consumer prices for both new and existing fibre connections. Only French consumers generally get a better deal than Danish consumers.
  • Danish consumer prices – both for new and existing connections – have overall fallen from 2021 to 2022. This is only seen in Denmark and the UK.
  • According to Ookla, Denmark has the fastest median broadband download speeds among the countries included in the comparison.

Tefficient’s approach has been thorough and the results are presented in a set of graphs like below.

Example graph from the analysis showing the total 2-year fee for the new build fibre case. The red trend line highlights Denmark’s position.
Continue reading Benchmarking fibre pricing in Denmark with eight other European countries

ARPU improved when data usage growth slowed down

Timely; inflation knocked on the door shortly after

Tefficient’s 34th public analysis on the development and drivers of mobile data ranks 104 operators based on average data usage per SIM, total data traffic and revenue per gigabyte in the full year of 2021 and in the first half of 2022.

In 2021 – a year marked by COVID – the data usage per SIM grew for 97% of operators. The average traffic growth was 32%. A majority of operators, 62%, could turn data usage growth into ARPU growth.

62% of operators could turn data usage growth into ARPU growth

Continue reading ARPU improved when data usage growth slowed down