Computerworld

Mobile revenue on the rise, total NZ telco spend at $5.22b

Commerce Commission releases 2012 telco annual monitoring report

Mobile retail revenues grew to $2.38 billion in the 2011/12 year, according to the Commerce Commission's 2012 telecommunications annual monitoring report released today.

Mobile retail revenues in the previous year were $2.14 billion.

"Fuelled by our ever-increasing use of smartphones and other mobile devices, New Zealanders almost doubled the amount of mobile data they used for the second year in a row. Fixed broadband data use also doubled in the last year with the average amount of data traffic per user now at 19GB per annum," says telecommunications commissioner Stephen Gale.

"Total retail telecommunications revenues rose slightly in the last two years to reach $5.22 billion in 2011/12 after several years of minimal growth. Revenue growth has tended to be well behind inflation, so, with increasing data use, consumers are getting more for their money."

Market concentration continued to fall in the fixed line voice, fixed line broadband and mobile markets in 2011/2012 as the largest players lost market share.

Gale notes other key findings of the report:

" Fixed broadband connections continued to grow, reaching 1.24 million in 2011/12. This pushes broadband penetration to around 78 percent of New Zealand households that have a fixed line connection.

" Landline and mobile calling minutes and calling revenue figures showed a modest decline as people continue to use alternatives like texting and social media networks in favour of making a call.

" Telecommunications investment picked up a little to $1.26 billion after peaking at $1.69 billion in 2008/09.

" Naked broadband services (where fixed line broadband is provided without a conventional voice service) have continued to grow in popularity driven by availability of competitively priced fixed line broadband and VoIP services, and the falling price of mobile voice services.

" The three biggest players in the mobile market moved closer in terms of market share this year. On a connections basis Vodafone had 42 percent of the market, Telecom 37 percent and 2degrees 20 percent as at 30 June 2012, with smaller mobile resellers making up the remaining one percent.

This year's report covers a transitional period before and after Telecom's 1 December 2011 split into Telecom and Chorus.

The full report can be read here.