Spain shed 162,124 mobile lines in March, ending the month with a total mobile base of 55.62 million users, up by 1.5 percent over the same month of 2011, according to a report by Spanish regulator CMT.
The MVNOs added nearly 111,580 net lines in March, and Orange saw 29,520 net additions. Yoigo added 5,870 customers, and Vodafone attracted 28,610 users in the month. Movistar lost 337,700 customers. The M2M sector went up by 9.7 percent over the same period last year, to over 2.55 million lines. The growth of the M2M sector brings the total number of mobile lines to over 58.17 million.
Spain ported 435,461 mobile phone numbers in March, down nearly 17.3 percent versus the same period of 2011. Yoigo, the MVNOs, Orange and Vodafone saw a positive balance in portability, while Movistar registered a negative balance. Yoigo won 22,772 net users, the MVNOs added 39,787 users, Orange won 52,200 ported customers. Vodafone added 3,589 customers, while Movistar shed 118,348 users in the month.
Spanish operators added 14,453 broadband users in March. Spain ended March with a total base of 11.23 million broadband lines, up by 3.6 percent year-on-year and a penetration of over 24.3 lines per 100 inhabitants. The number of DSL lines rose by 3,083 connections over the same period of 2011, reaching a total of 8.97 million lines at the end of March.
The overall number of fixed lines dropped by 54,135 to 19.31 million lines at the end of March. Fixed penetration decreased to 41.8 lines per 100 inhabitants in March 2012, versus 42.7 percent in the year-earlier month. Around 146,570 fixed numbers were ported in March, down by 25.1 percent from 195,630 fixed numbers ported in March 2011.
