Norwegian electronic communications regulator Nkom said in its report for the sector for the first half of 2016 that the number of fibre subscriptions had gone up by more than 112,000 from the same period of 2015. Of those, 104,000 were on the private market. This is the highest rise in fibre subscriptions in a twelve-month period ever.
Revenue for fixed line telephony, mobile services and fixed broadband was approximately NOK 15.92 billion in the first six months of the year, up by almost NOK 183 million compared with the first half of 2015. On 30 June 2016, there were about 2.07 million fixed broadband subscriptions, taking the corporate and retail markets together.
Nkom said fibre lines accounted for 35 percent of them, or almost 735,000 subscriptions. This was a rise of nearly 112,400 year on year. There are in excess of 691,000 private fibre subscriptions. The number of subscriptions for broadband via the cable television network grew by less than before to nearly 634,100. The number of xDSL subscriptions fell.
At the end of the first half of 2016, there were nearly 6.2 million subscriptions for mobile telephony and mobile broadband altogether, down by 69,000 year on year. The number of post-paid mobile telephony services is growing and the number of pre-payment card services is falling. In all, the number of mobile telephony subscriptions fell by around 31,000.
Mobile customers continue to use more and more internet, with data traffic rising by about 23 million gigabytes year on year to 68 million GB, of which more than 62 percent was generated by mobile telephony subscriptions.
Roaming data use went up from about 292,000 GB in the first half of 2015 to almost 741,000 GB, but lower prices meant that revenue from these services dropped by some NOK 139 million year on year to NOK 642 million.
Turning to fixed line telephony, the number of subscriptions declined by approximately 157,000 on 30 June 2015 to 864,000 on the same date this year.
The number of television subscriptions declined by about 3,000 to 2.223 million year on year, the first time TV customers have fallen. Fibre is the only technology seeing any growth here, with fibre TV up by more than 58,000 subscriptions. Fibre accounts for 23 percent of all TV subscriptions. TV revenue rose by NOK 169 million to NOK 4.35 billion.
Telenor’s share of the total market for mobile telephony and mobile broadband slipped from 57.4 percent in the first half of 2015 to 56.4 percent this year. Telia’s market share rose a little, from 32.3 percent to 33.0 percent.
When it comes to landline broadband, Telenor has a 41.3 percent share of the private market. It has an 18.2 percent of the fibre broadband sector. Get was the second-largest provider of fixed broadband, taking all forms of access. It share of the private market rose from 16.9 percent to 17.5 percent. Viken Fiber came third with 15.9 percent.
Telenor is the largest TV service provider at 43.7 percent of subscriptions, down from 44.4 percent a year earlier. Get was second with 19.4 percent, compared with 19.3 percent a year earlier.
