The latest key market indicators in the communications industry confirm the rise of the mobile device, the decline of fixed-line telephony communication, the noteworthy rise in the amount of parcel mail received from abroad, and the consistent rise in popularity of internet-based digital TV.
The figures, published by the Malta Communications Authority, have just been updated right up to the end of December 2013.
The mobile penetration rate stood at 137 per cent at the end of last year, which means there were 137 mobile lines for every 100 persons in the country. When the last five years are taken into account, the following trends can be observed: the percentage of post-paid subscriptions have consistently gone up; the number of minutes in voice calls has actually doubled, whereas the number of users has not increased by the same rate; mobile roaming has increased by around 50 per cent; and mobile companies have seen the average return per user consistently getting lower.
The number of minutes in mobile voice calls has doubled
These trends can be attributed to several factors: post-paid mobile plans now include good data bundles to access internet; mobile roaming rates have gone down thanks to the intervention of the EU; and the voice tariffs have gone down with very attractive offers by the providers.
The use of fixed-line telephony is down, true, but the decline is not to the extent one would have expected. The number of lines has decreased but mainly in terms of pre-paid subscriptions. Post-paid subscriptions have actually increased, a direct result of such lines being bundled by with other services such as internet and TV services by the same service provider. The number and length of voice calls has gone down, and when compared to the increase in mobile voice call minutes, the trend becomes quite clear.
Fixed internet broadband continued to increase in the period 2009-2013, with the penetration rate expanding from 26.6 per cent to 33.77 per cent. The most popular access speeds are between 10 and 50 megabits/s as opposed to less than five megabits/s in 2009, which goes to show the substantial rise in internet access speeds we have experienced.
The market is divided almost evenly between cable internet and DSL subscriptions, provided by Melita and Go respectively. Bundling of these services with other offerings by the same company has been very popular with subscribers, registering a 100 per cent increase over five years. Wireless broadband internet never took off according to the figures under study.
Digital pay TV services have seen some interesting developments over the past five years. Digital terrestrial TV by Go has risen in popularity at a faster rate than cable TV provided by Melita, though the latter still provides the absolute majority of subscriptions. Go’s IPTV internet-based TV platform launched in 2011 has claimed four per cent of the market despite the fact it has not been launched on a national scale.
The rise of online shopping seems to have had an effect on the postal services, which are also regulated by the MCA. The number of postal mail volumes has remained, on average, the same between 2009 and 2013. However a clear shift can be observed: the number of domestic parcel mail has tripled while the number of inbound cross-border parcel mail has almost doubled. However, 86,025 compared to 11,135 parcels coming from abroad may probably prove how much the Maltese prefer to do online shopping from foreign websites rather than local ones, as confirmed by recent surveys on e-commerce in Malta.