Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1331734
2 NEWS 21.01.2021 THE telecoms sector continued to per- form relatively well during COVID times, with the fixed segment seeing a rise in take-up for the first three quarters of 2020, according to data released by the Malta Communications Authority. is is because consumers tend to pur- chase fixed broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV services in a triple-play pack- age, driven of course by the selling strate- gies employed by local telecom providers. More subscriptions were recorded for the afore-mentioned fixed services by the end of September 2020 when compared to a year earlier. e third quarter of 2020 did also see the mobile segment recuperate some of the subscriptions that were lost in the previous quarter, with subscrip- tions at the end of September 2020 slight- ly higher than recorded a year earlier. e pandemic exacerbated the loss in postal mail activity, solely as a result of the drop in standard letter mail volumes. However, not all looked bleak on the post- al front, as evidenced by more buoyant bulk, registered and parcel mail volumes in the first nine months of the 2020 com- pared to the same period a year earlier. Fixed Broadband A total of 211,060 fixed broadband subscriptions were recorded as at end of September 2020, which is 10,759 more than recorded twelve months earlier. is translates into a 5.4% rise in fixed broad- band subscriptions in the 12-month peri- od ending last September. Rising fixed broadband take-up demon- strates society's increasingly stronger reli- ance on connectivity and digital services, especially after the developments that marked the second quarter of 2020 with the huge spike in remote working and other digital homebound activities. e proportion of subscriptions on a bundle offer also maintained its steady-growth path, reaching almost 93% by the end of September 2020. Broadband connectivity during the first nine months of 2020 was also increasingly dominated by headline download speeds of 100Mbps or more. In fact, year-on-year, the proportion of fixed broadband subscriptions supporting such headline download speeds was up by 8 percentage points, from 41% at the end of September 2019 to 51% at the end of the current reporting period. Subscriptions via FTTH network in- creased by 7,320 during the same period (up by almost 28%), more than double the decline in copper DSL subscriptions. e cable network added 4,496 subscriptions (or a 5.3% increase) whilst the number of subscriptions on fixed wireless solutions was up by 2,836 (or by almost 26%). Contrary however to long-term mar- ket trends, fixed broadband ARPU for the third quarter of 2020 stood at €55.82 compared to €60.41 in the third quarter of 2019. is trend change in fixed broad- band ARPU started in the fourth quar- ter of 2019 and is most likely a result of a change implemented by local telecom operators in their bundle revenue appor- tionment by service. is when consider- ing the very high proportion of telecom subscriptions currently being purchased in a bundle and the ARPU increases re- corded for other fixed telecom services as indicated hereunder. Mobile telephony e mobile telephony segment regis- tered wider progress in the third quarter of 2020, as it bounced back from the de- cline in take-up observed in the previous quarter due to the immediate impact left by the COVID pandemic. e number of subscriptions was up by almost 19,000 quarter-on-quarter reaching 635,040 by the end of September 2020. e latter fig- ure is slightly higher than that registered 12 months earlier and is fully attributed to the post-paid segment, which added 13,561 new subscriptions and thus slight- ly outweighed a drop of 13,289 pre-paid subscriptions. Overall, mobile traffic volumes in- creased considerably during the months under review, with reported voice min- utes up almost 15% when comparing ac- tivity for the third quarter of 2020 with that in the same period of 2019 and mo- bile data Mb consumption up by 153% respectively. e relevance of the former result is con- siderable when noting that the number of outgoing voice calls in the quarter under review was just 1% higher compared to the same quarter in 2019. Overall, this means that mobile telephony users main- tained the trend of making increasingly lengthier calls. is at a time when SMS and MMS volumes decreased by 9.6% and 29.4% respectively. e drop in travel activity impacted on roaming minute and data volumes. Outbound roaming minutes in the third quarter of 2020 were 44% lower than in the third quarter of 2019, whilst inbound roaming minutes were almost 50% lower. Mobile telephony ARPU was down to €43.43 in the second quarter of 2020 from €45.38 in the same quarter a year earlier. Pay-Tv e pay TV segment registered a third successive uptick in take-up for the latest reporting period of 2020, with subscrip- tions rising to 172,655 by the end of last September. Interestingly, a year-on-year comparison shows that the number of pay TV subscriptions on a bundle was up by 9,288 between September 2019 and September 2020 compared to 4,000 new pay TV clients reported by local ser- vice providers for the same period. is means that a substantial number of exist- ing pay-TV subscribers on a stand-alone plan effectively switched to a pay-TV plan packaged in a bundle. Almost 80% of all pay-TV subscriptions at the end of Sep- tember 2020 were purchased in a bundle. Subscriptions on the IPTV platform were up by 7,210 (or 14%) over the 12-month period ending September 2020. Relevant to note is that this increase almost made up for the decline of 7,427 subscriptions for the DTTV platform, which is owned by the same operator owning the IPTV platform. e digital cable platform recorded an increase of 4,218 subscriptions, up from 100,168 subscriptions at the end of Sep- tember 2019 to 104,286 subscriptions at the end of last September Pay TV ARPU was significantly up from €44.06 in the third quarter of 2019 to €48.72 in the third quarter of 2020. is is again most likely a result of a change in the allocation of bundle reve- nues by service, for which local service provides enjoy full discretion in deriving the figures. is change in trend for pay TV ARPU also somewhat corresponds with the observed decline in fixed broad- band ARPU, which again could indicate a change in the bundle revenue appor- tionment by service carried out by tele- com operators. Fixed telephony e fixed telephony segment reported an increase of 2,094 subscriptions year- on-year (up by 0.8%), from 257,415 at the end of September 2019 to 259,509 at the end of the current reporting period. is increase coincides with a drop in fixed voice call and fixed voice call min- ute volumes. Comparing traffic volumes in the third quarter of 2020 with those recorded in the same quarter a year ear- lier, the number of voice calls was down by almost 22% whilst the number of outgoing voice call minutes was down by 10%. ese trends are again evidence that take-up of fixed telephony is not ef- fectively driven by demand for the call- ing facility available via this service but rather as a result of operators bundling the service with fixed broadband. Of note is the recorded increase of 14,358 fixed telephony subscriptions in a bundle in the 12-month period ending last September. Somewhat not in synch with develop- ments highlighted above, fixed telepho- ny ARPU reported by local service pro- viders increased from €31.17 in the third quarter of 2019 to €33.10 in the third quarter of 2020. Post e pandemic is accentuating the post- al sector's pre-existing trends of falling mail volumes. Whilst third quarter de- velopments are evident of this trend, it has to be said that only one category of mail within the scope of the universal service – namely standard letter mail – saw a steady drop in volumes compared to the same period of 2019. is drop was significant, to such an extent that it outweighed gains recorded in all the oth- er categories of mail. Mail volumes within the scope of the universal services in the third quarter of 2020 were down by 30.4% for the stand- ard letter mail category when compared to mail volumes in the third quarter of 2019. On the other hand, bulk mail volumes were up by 6.1%, registered mail volumes were up by 89.2% and parcel mail vol- umes up by 57.6% as a result of the surge in e-commerce driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of mail delivered outside the scope of the universal service, volumes in the third quarter of 2020 were down by 4% compared to the same period of the previous year. Market developments for electronic communications and post in Q3 2020