The Q3 performance is in line with Telecompaper's full-year outlook for a fall of 6.5-7.0 percent in service revenues in 2014. For the period 2014-2018, the Dutch market is expected to show a negative CAGR of 3.0 percent, reaching around EUR 4.6 billion in revenues in 2018.
While all three of the mobile network operators showed lower revenues on an annual basis in Q3 2014, Vodafone showed the smallest decline and also managed a small increase in revenue compared to the second quarter. Vodafone has now grown its share of service revenues for five consecutive quarters, to reach over a third of the market. This has largely come at the expense of KPN, which had just over 42 percent of service revenues in Q3. T-Mobile’s revenue share was down slightly in Q3, at around 24 percent.
The number of mobile connections was largely stable in Q3. Including MVNOs, the number of mobile SIMs decreased by 0.2 percent annually and was up by 0.3 percent sequentially to 20.5 million at the end of September 2014. For the forecast period, Telecompaper expects the total market to increase to 21.4 million mobile SIMs in 2018 (excluding M2M).
KPN increased slightly its share of SIMs to 49 percent in the third quarter, due to growth in postpaid and a slower decline in prepaid. Vodafone’s share was stable at 26 percent, while T-Mobile declined slightly but still had a quarter of the market. Excluding M2M and MVNOs, the market shares look somewhat different, with KPN dropping to 43 percent, and Vodafone and T-Mobile increasing to respectively 32 percent and 25 percent.
