Figures published yesterday in the latest Irish Communications Market ComReg quarterly report suggest that 146,326 households and businesses in Ireland are currently subscribed to broadband packages of 2Mbps or less. Data concerning Q1 2011 indicates that 123,934 residential broadband subscriptions and 22,392 business broadband subscriptions are currently active for packages offering between 144kps and 1.99Mbps download speeds.
Since actual broadband speeds received are on average half that of the advertised speed, this overall figure of 146,326 Irish Internet subscribers on 2Mbps broadband or less is likely to be significantly higher.
ComReg also report that 78.9% of residential broadband subscriptions are at contracted speeds of between 2Mbps and 9.9Mbps, while 12.1% are subscribed to 10Mbps or greater.
The total number of Irish Internet subscribers in Q1 2011 now stands at 1,655,107, representing an annual increase of 5.6%. Fixed broadband subscriptions and mobile broadband subscriptions especially continue to rise, with 5.3% and 20.7% increases witnessed respectively. The total number of fixed broadband subscribers now stands at 1,033,135, while mobile broadband subscriptions total 591,368.
Eircom has the largest fixed broadband market share at 47.5%, followed by UPC at 20.9%, Vodafone at 16.4%, Imagine at 5 5.1% and Digiweb at 2.8%. Three has largest mobile broadband market share at 33.8%, followed by O2 at 28.8%, Vodafone at 27.2% and Meteor at 10.2%.
Total Irish communications market revenues in Q1 2011 remain similar to that experienced in Q1 2010, amounting to €949,178,257. Fixed line revenues have increased by 2.4% over the past year, while revenues derived from mobile have decreased by 3%.
Meanwhile, Ireland’s largest telecommunications operator Eircom has continued to lose overall market share, which has only accelerated during the second half of last year. Since the start of 2009 the company has lost 8% market share to competitors.