Spanish telecoms revenues drop 6.2% to EUR 6.8 bln in Q4

The Spanish telecommunication sector generated total revenues of EUR 6.82 billion in the October to December period, down by 6.2 percent from the same period of 2012, according to the quarterly report issued by Spain’s telecoms regulator CNMC. Retail services fell by 5.1 percent year-on-year, while wholesale services plummeted by 11.7 percent, above all due to the reduction in the mobile interconnect rate applied from July. Revenues from mobile communications accounted for 38.2 percent of the total retail revenues for the sector, while 32.4 percent came from fixed communication services. The regulator also confirmed that the sector’s revenue for the year as a whole decreased by 7.2 percent to EUR 31.9 billion, the fifth consecutive annual contraction.

Once again, mobile broadband was the only service that returned positive figures in the quarter: posting a 16.7 percent year-on-year growth to EUR 853.6 million. However, the revenues from other mobile communications (voice and text) fell by 20.8 percent compared to the same period of 2012. 

Fixed broadband revenues, which have shown a downward trend since 2010, fell by 3.3 percent to EUR 868.3 million, although the number of lines continued to grow to 12.1 million, a 6.0 percent rise compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. According to the report, 10 million of those lines offered speeds of 10 Mbps or more, with 15 percent of them offering speeds above 30 Mbps.

The report also highlighted the increasing dominance of convergent offers in the Spanish market, with quad play (including fixed and mobile voice and broadband lines) and quintuple play (also including pay-TV) subscriptions having multiplied by five compared to 2012 to reach a total of 5.9 million. There were 5.2 million quad play subscriptions in December 2013, a 389.1 percent increase, while quintuple play subscriptions had risen by 378.8 percent year-on-year to 0.7 million.

In terms of revenues per operator, Movistar, Vodafone and Orange revenues fell by 18.5 percent, 12.9 percent and 2.1 percent respectively in the last quarter of the year, while those of Yoigo and Jazztel increased by 12.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively. On an annual basis Yoigo and Jazztel also registered the biggest increases compared to 2012, growing by 14.9 percent and 11.7 percent respectively, with the revenues of Movistar and Vodafone falling and those of Orange and Ono registering almost identical year-on-year figures according to the CNMC.