Dutch mobile service revenues fell 7.0 percent year-on-year to EUR 941 million in the first quarter of 2017, hurt by regulatory effects as well as continued price pressure and tough competition. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2017, revenues fell 3.0 percent, according to the latest quarterly report from Telecompaper.
Tele2 was the only operator to grow revenues on an annual basis, up 18 percent. It remains the smallest player, but saw its market share grow to 6.2 percent in Q1 from 4.9 percent a year earlier. T-Mobile and Vodafone reported revenues down 8-9 percent, and KPN lost 7.2 percent of revenues on an annual basis. KPN remained market leader with a share of 40.5 percent, while Vodafone's share fell by 0.9 percent to 30.8 percent after registering the biggest fall in sales. T-Mobile lost less market share and finished at 22.5 percent of revenues.
The continued contraction in the Dutch mobile market was due largely to regulation. Vodafone estimated that regulation had an impact of EUR 20 million in the first quarter, mainly due to lower roaming revenues as well as reduced termination rates.
Telecompaper expects revenues over the full year to fall by around 3 percent to EUR 3.9 billion. Over the five years to 2022, the market is forecast to show a negative CAGR of 1.6 percent, falling to annual revenues of around EUR 3.7 billion at the end of the period.
The intense competition and price pressure is not expected to let up, even if the planned merger of T-Mobile and Tele2 goes ahead. The growth in data and other services is not enough to offset the structural decline in revenues from voice and SMS, while regulation and bundling discounts will also continue to have a negative impact on revenues.
