T-Mobile takes lead in Dutch mobile market in 2020 as KPN loses customers

Nieuws Mobiel Nederland 3 MAR 2021
T-Mobile takes lead in Dutch mobile market in 2020 as KPN loses customers

T-Mobile became the biggest mobile operator in the Netherlands at the end of 2020, the latest research by Telecompaper shows. In addition to steady organic growth, T-Mobile added around 1 million customers with the takeover of MVNO Simpel in December, allowing the company to overtake long-time market leader KPN in the number of retail mobile customers. Vodafone remained in third place, but also increased its customer base in 2020, while KPN lost mobile subscribers.

T-Mobile ended 2020 with 6.8 million retail mobile customers, up by 1.2 million from the start of the year. KPN’s retail base contracted just over 1 percent over the year to 6.4 million, hurt by its decision to discontinue the Telfort brand and focus more on higher value customers with the KPN brand. In addition, KPN's prepaid base declined by more than 12 percent. Vodafone performed better, growing to nearly 5.2 million customers at year-end thanks to demand for its fixed-mobile bundles with Ziggo and improvement in the B2B segment.

"KPN is losing out to T-Mobile in the mobile-only segment and Vodafone in the FMC market," said Alejandra van de Roer, Telecompaper senior analyst for the mobile market. "KPN’s strategy is designed to grow revenues, but has not yet shown much impact on ARPU. There remains the issue as well of whether the brand is attractive enough in the consumer market."

Vodafone grows most in Q4

The mobile market was impacted in Q4 by shop closures from mid-December due to the latest coronavirus lockdown. Vodafone showed the best organic performance, adding 67,000 retail postpaid subscribers, while T-Mobile’s organic growth slowed to just 22,000 postpaid net additions, barely a quarter the level of Q4 2019. KPN improved to 27,000 postpaid subscribers added in the three months, but only 1,000 were in the consumer market.

A complete analysis of the mobile market, including a five-year market forecast, is available in Telecompaper’s quarterly Dutch Mobile Operators report, the next edition of which will be published later this month. For more information, please contact research@telecompaper.com. 

Categories:

Mobiel

Companies:

KPN,  Telfort,  Telecompaper,  Ziggo,  T-Mobile Netherlands,  Vodafone Netherlands

Countries:

Nederland

Tags:

Sales figures, Market research

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