The number of active mobile phone numbers in Portugal reached, at the end of the first quarter, 10.6 million, which is more than the Portuguese population, according to the National Communications Authority (ANACOM). This factor is justified by the fact that "many users own several cards from more than one operator due to the use of the service in machine-to-machine solutions", explained the regulator. Pre-paid cards represent 81.4 percent of total clients, with the remaining 1.98 million users opting for post-paid. These 10.6 million users represent a 2.7 percent increase on the end of 2004 and of 7.9 percent compared to the first quarter of the same year. "This value means that the penetration rate is 101.6 percent and puts Portugal among those EU countries in which the penetration rate has surpassed 100%", points out the same source. Even so, the number of mobile phone calls fell by 1.3 percent during the first three months of the year, compared to the previous quarter. This fall is explained by the seasonal character of the use of the service, since more calls are made during the Christmas period. During the first three months of the year were sent a total of 625 million written messages, down 8.4 percent on the last three months of 2004. Each user sent, on average, 20 messages per month. During the same period, mobile phones received 1.54 billion calls. In terms of minutes, traffic originating on the mobile network increased by 1.3 percent to 2.73 billion minutes, while traffic terminating on this network increased by 1.4 percent to 2.81 billion minutes.
