German mobile service revenues have grown by 2.1 percent to EUR 24.6 billion in 2010 for the first time since five years, according to German telecom expert and professor Torsten Gerpott during the 17th Handelsblatt telecom conference cited by onlinekosten.de. The four mobile operators saw their revenue grow by EUR 560 million to EUR 20 billion during 2010. At the same time, the revenues from fixed networks decreased by 2.2 percent to EUR 36.1 billion for 2010, fuelling a 2.1 percent decrease in German revenues for Deutsche Telekom. At the same time, the former incumbent increased its efforts to expand its networks (fixed and mobile) leading to an increase of German telecom investments from EUR 6.7 billion in 2009 to EUR 7.2 billion in 2010. Telekom also reported a increase of mobile service revenues of 55 percent while its mobile ARPU grew from EUR 14.90 in 2009 to EUR 17.30 in 2010. At the same time Vodafone Germany saw its ARPU drop from EUR 15.80 to EUR 15.50, Telefonica Germany reported a drop from EUR 15.30 to EUR 14.50, while E-Plus' ARPU was stable at EUR 12.90. Gerpott also said that the number of Sim cards sold in Germany grew by 0.5 percent to 109 million in 2010, a much smaller increase than in earlier years due to shedding of inactive prepaid customers mostly by Telekom. The German mobile data revenues (including SMS/MMS) grew by 4 percent year-on-year to EUR 3.4 billion in 2010.
