Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1364335
22.4.2021 7 ANALYSIS upward trend in take-up for the year in review. Year-on-year, subscriptions were up by 1,856 (or by 1.1%). Close to 81% of all pay-TV subscriptions at the end of 2020 were purchased in a bundle. A look at the trends in take-up by technology platform shows that IP- TV-based subscriptions were up by 5,812 (or by 10.6%) over the 12-month period ending December 2020. Mean- while, the number of subscriptions for the DTTV platform, which is owned by the same operator, was down by 7,733 subscriptions (or by 52.7%), as this operator started switching its cli- ents to the former platform in view of the impending digital terrestrial switch-off. The number of subscriptions for the digital cable platform was up by 3.7% year-on-year, equivalent to a rise of 3,777 subscriptions in the 12-month period under review. Pay TV ARPU was significantly up from €178.11 in 2019 to €193.83 in 2020. Fixed telephony The fixed telephony segment saw a rise of 2,618 subscriptions (an uptick of 1.0%) in the 12-month period un- der review to reach a total of 259,456 subscriptions by the end of December 2020. 83% of all fixed telephony sub- scriptions were purchased in a bundle alongside other telecom services. Whilst the number of subscrip- tions was up year-on-year, voice call and minute volumes were down. The number of fixed telephony voice calls was down by 21.4% whereas the num- ber of outgoing fixed voice call min- utes fell by 6.6%. These trends underscore the notion that take-up of the fixed telephony service is effectively driven by the commercial stance of local service providers to sell different telecom services in a bundle alongside fixed broadband. Year-on-year, an increase of 4,585 post-paid subscriptions outweighed a decline observed in the pre-paid and enhanced subscriber base, which saw the number of clients go down by 1,832 and 135 respectively. Fixed telephony ARPU for 2020 to- talled €129.22, which is up by 4.5% from €123.61 for the previous year. High quality dedicated con- nections By definition, dedicated connections are high-quality, dedicated, point-to- point data transmission connections used by businesses operating in Mal- ta, such as banks, gaming companies and government entities. This is a niche business segment for local telecom operators representing a relatively small number of users with somewhat distinct data connectivity requirements to those exhibited by the mass market for fixed broadband. Typically, these data connectivity ser- vices are offered with no contention ratio, are fully symmetrical and come guaranteed with strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs). The number of high-quality dedi- cated connections totalled 363 by the end of the current reporting period. This is down by almost 6% year-on- year. As already indicated in previous publications, this trend is not in itself a sign of a diluting business client base. Indeed, it may be the case that business clients migrated to one of the several connectivity solutions that may be offered by local service pro- viders but which do not fall within the description of dedicated connections addressed in this publication. Post The pandemic has accelerated de- clines in postal mail volumes. In fact, quarterly developments for the year under review, particularly from the second quarter onwards, clearly out- line this trend. When it comes to postal mail vol- umes within the scope of the univer- sal service, a year-on-year compar- ison shows that single-piece letter mail volumes were down by 23.7%, registered mail volumes were down by 4.7% and bulk mail volumes were down by 3.5%. In contrast, parcel mail volumes were up by 21.4%, most likely as a result of an increase in online re- tail transactions. Mail volumes outside the scope of the universal service were down by 1.4% year-on-year, as the 14.2% in- crease in volumes for bigger sized par- cel mail items (2kgs to 31.5kgs) was not sufficient to outweigh the 10.5% decline in mail volumes for mail items weighing less than 2kgs.