The quarterly growth for digital telephony was driven by VoIP via DSL which gained 0.9 percent more customers to end Q2 2015 with almost than 2.05 million subscribers. At the same time VoIP via fibre grew by 5.4 percent, as DSL/fibre providers like KPN and its brands Telfort, XS4ALL as well as Vodafone continued their extensive marketing campaigns for triple play services. This was enough to off-set a 0.8 percent decrease in cable VoIP lines, ending June with almost 2.67 million lines.
The cable operators have started to lose market share, confirming the analysis of the researchers that they have reached a saturation point in terms of how many more fixed lines they can sell. Offering telephony as add-on for EUR 1.45 a month, as Ziggo did in April, had no positive effect on fixed line growth during the quarter, according to the report. A similar saturation effect is expected to occur for fibre starting in 2015 and DSL starting in 2017. As a result, Telecompaper expects the overall fixed telephony market to show a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 0.1 percent over the five-year period 2015-2019.
Telecompaper’s quarterly report also estimates retail revenues, for the mass market (consumer and SOHO) fixed telephony market, which amounted to EUR 303 million for the second quarter of 2015. This is 1.8 percent lower than in the first quarter.
