French mobile market still growing but reaching a plateau
ARCEP, the French regulator, released its quarterly report on the mobile market in France for the 3rd quarter of 2008 ending September 31. Here are a few interesting statistics:
- There are 56.4 million mobile phone subscribers, an increase of 0.7% from the previous quarter: a 2.2% increase (+805,000) in post-paid subscriptions and 2.3% decrease (-434,000) in prepaid subscriptions. The 0.7 percent increase is slightly lower than the 1% registered in the same quarter of 2007.
- On a year-to-year basis, compared to the same quarter last year, the increase in the number of subscriptions is 6.3%, which is a lower than the 7.1% and 6.5% growth of the first and second quarters, respectively, of this year. This means the market is still growing, but is approaching its peak.
- In terms of penetration, 88.7% of the French population now subscribes to a cellular service (versus 84% same time last year).
The number of mobile numbers ported from one operator to another during a quarter has risen dramatically ever since a simplified procedure for keeping one’s phone number entered into effect in May 2007. In the third quarter of 2008, 305,000 numbers were ported, about 30% more than the 252,000 ported in the third quarter 2007.
Explosion of SMS and mobile data use in France
The SMS market has rapidly evolved in France with a net year-to-year growth of 71%. In the third quarter 2008, up to 8.6 billion text messages were sent from a French cellular phone. This is almost twice as much as the number (4.8 billion) sent in Q3 2007.This steep increase in SMS traffic results from the drop in SMS termination fees that operators charge one another, (from €0.06 to €0.043), which the regulator ARCEP forced upon the operators in 2006.
The average active subscriber sends 52.4 text messages a month, a sharp increase from 31.1 in the previous year. Internet access using a mobile phone (and sending MMS) has also taken off: 17.4 million people or 32.8% of the all cell phone users are accessing the Internet with their device. This represents an increase of 14.2% on a year to year basis, since 3G coverage in France has improved. It should continue to grow as operators in France have developed an offer with a USB key used as a cellular modem, plugged into a PC to access the Internet via the cellular network.
Growth in voice minutes slowing dramatically
In terms of post-paid and pre-paid voice traffic, ARCEP released numbers only for the end of Q2 2008. The second quarter of the year shows growth slowing to 3.3% year-to-year with 35.8 billion minutes used during this quarter, a mere 1.0 % growth over the previous quarter. After seeing high growth rates in 2006 (of around +15% over one year) this traffic began to slow continuously and regularly at the beginning of 2007, falling to 7.2 % growth year-to-year in the fourth quarter of 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, year-to-year growth in the volume of traffic was at 5.2% (a slight decrease over the previous quarter).
The quarterly recurrent revenue for all operators was €5.55 billion at the end of the second quarter, a year-to-year increase of 5.6%, up from €5.31 in the previous quarter. It is based on customer access to mobile services on the retail market and the wholesale market (roaming out included) by MVNO and inbound traffic through call termination. It does not include value added services like SMS or handset resales.
After plummeting for three quarters, the average monthly revenue per customer is now €35.30 and is growing at 0.4% (year-to-year). At the end of June, it was on track to grow 4.4% over the previous quarter. Growth is driven mainly by monthly prepaid new additional services, which are growing 6% each year. MVNOs with 2.65 million subscribers still represent a small and stable part of the market (4.9%).
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