The number of Italian fibre-optic lines offering speeds of 100 Mbps or over reached 2.4 million at the end of the second quarter of 2018, up over 1 million year on year, according to preliminary data from regulator Agcom. The total number of fixed broadband lines rose by 810,000 year on year to 16.9 million, thanks mainly to the growth of FTTC and FTTH connections. Accesses offering speeds of 30 to 100 Mbps climbed by 1.97 million to around 4 million, and lines with data transfer speeds of over 30 Mbps made up 38 percent of the total at the end of June, up from 31 percent just three months earlier.
In terms of operators, market leader Telecom Italia (TIM) had a 44.7 percent share of the fixed broadband market, down from 44.9 percent in Q2 2017. Vodafone increased its share by 1.2 percent year on year to 15.2 percent, while Fastweb and Wind Tre declined by 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent respectively to 14.8 percent and 14.4 percent of the market.
The mobile market added some 2.4 million lines year on year, due above all to a 4.1 million rise in M2M lines, which offset a 1.7 million fall in traditional SIMs. The quarter saw Wind Tre continue to lead the market with a 34.5 percent share of traditional SIMs at end-June, down 1.2 percent year on year but ahead of TIM and Vodafone with 28.7 percent and 26.5 percent respectively. Significantly, Agcom has yet to include the number of SIMs activated by new entrant Iliad, which launched its Italian operation at the end of May.
Agcom added that the number of mobile broadband users climbed by 3.5 percent year on year to 53.8 million, and the average data consumed surged by 54.7 percent year on year to 3.63 GB a month.
