Comreg Quarterly report Q1 2013

Comreg released their quarterly report for Q1 2013. Comparing Q1 2012 to Q1 2013, total voice and other revenues were down by 3.6% as were messaging revenues which were down by 15.1% but data revenues were up by 14.6%. This is born out by the increase in data charges (and cuts to data allowances) by most networks and how most people now use VOiP and internet messaging apps like Skype, Viber, Whatsapp, iMessage and BBM to communicate rather than traditional sms and calls.

Imagine (up almost 1%), Vodafone (up by 0.2%) and UPC (up by 4.1%) increased their share of the fixed broadband market while eircom (down by 4%) continued to loose market share over Q1 2012.

There was little or no change over 2012 in the mobile broadband market other than O2 over taking (marginally) Vodafone as the company with the largest market share.

Surprisingly there’s a shift in these tough economic times away from pre pay  plans to bill pay (or post pay) plans which are up up 4% over this time last year.

When we look at the breakdown by network of where these pre and post paid customers are moving to we see that all the networks have evenly taken increases in post paid numbers and decreases in pre paid numbers.

There wasn’t much of a change in market share by subscribers between all the networks over the last year but we did see a large increase in market share by revenue for O2. The cynics amongst us could see this as possible price gouging it’s shrinking user base in advance of an imminent sale.

The fukl report can be seen here