Category Archives: Revenues and pricing

Analysis, Austria, Belgium, Benchmarks, Croatia, data monetisation, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, mobile data usage, Netherlands, References, Revenues and pricing, Slovenia, Spain

Evaluating mobile service value for money across 12 EU countries

The Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission, EETT, functions as Greece’s national regulatory authority for telecommunications.

In response to EETT’s request, Tefficient has conducted an extensive benchmark analysis, focusing on value for money, spanning twelve EU and Euro countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain.

While the primary focus of the benchmark is on Greece, its insights provide valuable perspectives for the telecommunications industry in the remaining eleven countries.

Key conclusions for Greece include:

  • Mobile Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is approximately on par but with a notable increase
  • Mobile data usage is low but exhibits the most significant growth
  • Voice usage is the highest among the peer group but continues to see robust growth
  • The total mobile revenue per gigabyte of mobile data is high but demonstrates a marked decrease
  • Voice revenue per mobile voice minute aligns with the median and experiences median erosion
  • In terms of value for money, Greece ranks weaker in data offerings compared to most of its peers but stronger than most in voice services

Several selected example graphs are presented below.

Continue reading Evaluating mobile service value for money across 12 EU countries →
5G, Analysis, data monetisation, FWA, Inflation, mobile data usage, Revenues and pricing, South Korea

Human customers subsidise M2M/IoT customers

Tefficient’s 40th public analysis of mobile data development and drivers compares 47 countries worldwide, including M2M/IoT in the total bases. Mobile data usage grew in 44 of them, with Austria, Bahrain and China being exceptions.

If you’d rather see the analysis excluding M2M, go here.

When usage grows, the growth rates are slowing. Cyprus, however, had an astonishing growth rate of 123%, in stark contrast to much slower growth rates, or even declines, elsewhere.

Continue reading Human customers subsidise M2M/IoT customers →
5G, Analysis, Austria, data monetisation, Finland, fixed data usage, FWA, Inflation, mobile data usage, Revenues and pricing, South Korea, US

Data-only drives traffic. The same can’t be said for 5G.

Tefficient’s 39th public analysis of mobile data development and drivers compares 39 countries worldwide, where M2M/IoT can be excluded from the total bases. Mobile data usage grew in 38 of them – with Bahrain as the only exception.

If you’d rather see the analysis including M2M, go here.

When usage grows, the growth rates are slowing. Portugal leads with a growth rate of 47%, contrasting with Taiwan‘s modest 8% growth. Bahrain experienced a decline of 6% in data usage.

Data-only subscriptions continue to dominate average mobile data usage, although their market share remains limited. Latvia‘s average data-only subscription consumed 138 GB per month in 2022 while Austria recorded 115 GB in the first half of 2023. In the FWA-only category, Australia had a remarkable 334 GB per month in 1H 2023.

While data-only drives traffic, the same can’t be said for 5G

Reporting is imperfect, but there are only three countries with disproportionately high 5G traffic in relation to their 5G bases: South Korea, Austria and Saudi Arabia. We explain what these countries do and what other countries are missing.

Continue reading Data-only drives traffic. The same can’t be said for 5G. →
Analysis, Blog, Churn, Denmark, Finland, Inflation, MVNO, Nordic, Norway, OPEX, Revenues and pricing, Sweden

Seven signs that competition in Nordic telco is cooling down

The Q3 results just reported by Telia Company, Telenor, Tele2, 3 Scandinavia and Elisa show that it’s quite difficult not to be successful as a Nordic telco today.

Revenue and ARPU is growing. OPEX grows too, but slower than the revenue, so the EBITDA margins are increasing. Churn is decreasing. CAPEX is in decline. More cash is being generated.

We have identified seven signs that competition in cooling down in Nordic telco.

Sign 1. Mobile ARPU grows

Let’s start with Norway. The reported blended mobile ARPU has quite steadily increased for the two MNOs that still report it. For Telenor it grew 4% year-on-year to Q3 2023. For Telia it grew 3%.

Figure 1. Mobile ARPU, Norway (source data: operator reports)

In Sweden, the ARPU development has been a bit more dramatic than in Norway. Three players, first 3, then Telenor and the B2B side of Tele2, witnessed their ARPUs going down from 2018 to the first half of 2021. A corona effect, you might say. Not really; it started before corona started (Q1 2020) and compare with Telia who could keep their ARPU steady or even increase it when 3, Telenor and Tele2 B2B seemingly fought a battle on price.

Continue reading Seven signs that competition in Nordic telco is cooling down →
Analysis, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, FTTx, Germany, Inflation, Netherlands, Norway, References, Revenues and pricing, Sweden, UK

Benchmarking fibre pricing in Denmark with eight other European countries, 2023

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 third time (previously done in 2021 and in 2022), Tefficient has performed a comprehensive fibre broadband pricing benchmark covering nine European markets: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and France.

In a press release, Fiberalliancen introduces Tefficient’s analysis and makes it publicly available. Download it from the right ‘Dokumenter’ column. It’s in English.

The release concludes that:

  • Denmark has some of the lowest consumer prices for both new and existing fibre connections.
  • Danish consumer prices – both for new and existing connections – have overall fallen from 2022 to 2023. This is only seen in Denmark and the Netherlands.

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.

Commissioned by Fiberalliancen.

Analysis, Blog, Inflation, Revenues and pricing

Closing the ‘inflation deficit’

Since the onset of inflation in Europe at the beginning of 2022, Tefficient has been reporting on its progress through a series of LinkedIn posts and tweets. We have compared the overall inflation to the inflation within the ‘Communication’ component of the European Central Bank’s Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP).

The ‘Communication’ component closely reflects telecommunication prices, encompassing telecommunication services and equipment, albeit also including postal services. In August 2023, it accounted for 2.7% of the expenditure weight in HICP for the Eurozone.

If we rewind to a year ago, Europe’s telecommunications companies had a significant ‘inflation deficit’ when compared to the overall inflation. The graph below illustrates the gap between:

  • The overall annual inflation rate
  • The annual inflation rate within ‘Communication’
Continue reading Closing the ‘inflation deficit’ →