Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1364335
22.4.2021 6 ANALYSIS THE Malta Communications Author- ity has issued a report outlining the main markets trends observed for Malta's telecom and postal activities in 2020, based on figures reported by local service providers for the fourth quarter of the year. General developments The year 2020 was much about the pandemic and about how to reinvent ways to keep connected, to commu- nicate with work colleagues, and to venture with more vigour into online shopping and entertainment plat- forms. Against this backdrop, looking at trends for Malta's communication networks largely captures the main behavioural trends when it comes to connectivity. The figures for 2020 show that the pandemic triggered an acceleration of trends observed in the pre-pandemic world, such as bigger demand for fast and ultra-fast fixed broadband, larger volumes of mobile voice calling when it comes to minutes consumed, and bigger mobile data consumption. The latter is indeed an interesting devel- opment as data volumes consumed for 2020 totalled 34,088 million Mb, up by a staggering 141% on the pre- vious year. This excludes consump- tion related to connectivity over Wi- Fi. Alongside this development, local mobile operators saw voice minute volumes jump by 14% year-on-year. The fixed broadband segment saw the biggest rise in subscriptions year- on-year, up by 10,906 in the 12-month period to the end of December 2020. Significantly, the rising trend in bun- dle take-up persists, with 93% of all fixed broadband purchases occurred in a bundle setting. Consumers tend to purchase triple-play packaged products, involving fixed broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV services, induced by the selling strategies im- plemented by local telecoms provid- ers. One key take-away from the re- ported bundle figures involving fixed broadband is the continued pressure on local consumers to purchase the fixed telephony service in the bundle, notwithstanding the fact that they keep using it less. In fact, year-on- year, the number of fixed telephony subscriptions was up by 2,618 when fixed voice minute consumption was 6.6% down. Another key take-away relates to the TV segment, which saw a rise of 1,856 subscriptions in the 12-month period to the end of 2020. The postal sector continues to ex- perience a general drop in activi- ty, the rate of which appears to have been accelerated in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Comparing mail volumes in 2020 to those recorded in the previous year, a sharp drop is observed for single-piece letter mail, bulk mail, as well as registered mail. The last quarter of 2020 experienced similar tendencies as those mentioned when compared to the three previous months of the same year, except for letter mail, which in fact rose. In ad- dition, parcel mail registered a further rise, seemingly accentuated by Cov- id-19 restrictions. Fixed Broadband The total number of fixed broadband subscriptions amounted to 213,419 by the end of 2020. This figure is up by 10,906 compared to the correspond- ing figure a year earlier, equivalent to a 5.4% rise in subscriptions. This upward trend coincides with a significant rise in remote work- ing and other activities carried out online. The rate of broadband sub- scriptions within a bundle offer rose further to a little over 93% by the end of the current reporting period, with more subscriptions supporting fast and ultra-fast speeds. As a matter of fact, the number of connections sup- porting download speeds of 100Mbps or more rose by 7 percentage points from 46% at the end of 2019 to 53% at the end of 2020. Subscriptions via the FTTH network increased by 8,454 (or by 30.5%) in the 12-month period under review, with this platform accounting for 16.9% of all fixed broadband subscriptions by end of year. Cable subscriptions increased by 4,253 (or by 4.3%), thus accounting for 48.3% of all subscriptions at the end of the reporting period. Meanwhile, the number of fixed wireless broad- band subscriptions was up by 2,438 (or by 21%), to end the year represent- ing 6.6% of all fixed broadband sub- scriptions. In contrast, the number of copper DSL subscriptions was down by 4,239 (or by 6.6%) year-on-year. This segment represented 28.2% of all fixed broadband subscriptions by end of year. Fixed broadband ARPU was down from €240.98 in 2019 to €227.05 in 2020. This trend contrasts with the rising ARPU for fixed telephony and pay-TV. Mobile telephony The mobile telephony segment re- corded marginally lower subscrip- tions at the end of 2020 compared to twelve months earlier. Relevant to underline however, is that the mobile segment bounced back significantly since Q2 of 2020. Nonetheless, mobile subscriptions picked up substantially since June 2020 and figures by the end of the year are just 1,263 lower than that recorded at the end of 2019. Significantly, the overall change in subscriptions is a result of a drop of 15,738 pre-paid subscriptions year-on-year, compared to a rise of 14,475 post-paid subscriptions in the 12-month period to the end of De- cember 2020. Domestic mobile traffic volumes rose rapidly during 2020, with voice minutes up by 14% compared to vol- umes recorded in the preceding year, whilst mobile data Mb consumption shot up by 141% respectively. Meanwhile, SMS and MMS volumes fell drastically year-on-year, by 24% and 31% respectively. This goes to show that end-users are substituting the traditional mobile texting with mobile voice calling and to an extent with OTT-based platforms. The pandemic hit global travel- ling significantly and Malta was not spared. This impacted roaming voice and data consumption over mobile networks. Comparing volumes in 2020 to those recorded a year earlier, roaming voice minutes were down by 45% and roaming data volumes were down by 47% respectively. Mobile telephony ARPU was down to €170.91 in 2020 compared to €177.43 a year earlier. Pay-Tv The pay TV segment maintained an Market developments for electronic communications and post A first review of outcomes for 2020 based on Q4 figures