Overall consumer demand for telecoms remained strong in the third quarter of the year, particularly for fixed and mobile internet services, the Malta Communications Authority said on Wednesday.
In a statement outlining the main market trends for Malta’s telecom and postal activities in the third quarter of 2021, the authority said that stronger demand for mobile data materialised alongside a rise in voice minute volumes in the mobile segment, further entrenching mobile communications as the primary way Maltese stay connected.
The latest data indicates that, on a general level, many end-users sought fixed data offers with faster download speeds, while also upgrading to mobile data plans with bigger allowances. This happened in the context of continued investment by local service providers, such as in the commercial deployment of fibre networks and 5G networks.
Meanwhile, the postal segment did not see any reprieve from the long term decline in mail volumes. Postal mail volumes in the first three quarters of 2021 were 4% lower than mail volumes in the same period of 2020.
Inbound cross border mail features as one of the main contributors to the overall decline, partly due to the drop in e-commerce volumes originating from China and the UK.
Fixed Broadband
There were 219,460 fixed broadband subscriptions by the end of September. This is 8,931 more than a year earlier, equivalent to a 4% rise in subscriptions. 94% of all fixed broadband subscriptions were reported in a bundle set.
Most end-users in Malta have access to fast and ultra-fast internet, with download speeds of 100Mbps or more. The share of such users based on the local subscriber base was up by nine percentage points year-on-year, from 51% at the end of September 2020 to 60% at the end of September 2021.
Mobile telephony
The number of mobile telephony subscriptions was up by 22,378 (3.5%) year-on-year to 657,418 by the end of last September. Subscriptions picked up substantially over the course of the year as Malta saw the return of a good number of ex-pats alongside domestic growth.
In terms of voice and data usage, voice minute traffic volumes in the first three quarters of 2021 were 1.1% higher than the corresponding period in 2020, from 865 million minutes to 875 million minutes, while domestic data Mb volumes were 49.4% higher, from 23,887 million Mbs to 35,697 million Mbs.
SMS volumes recorded in the period January to September 2021 were 8.9% lower than in the same period of the previous year. The pandemic kept weighing down on roaming voice activity. In terms of inbound roaming, minute volumes consumed in the first nine months of 2021 were 7.2% lower than consumed in the first nine months of 2020. Nonetheless, data volumes were 66.6% higher.
Pay-TV
The TV segment maintained an upward trend in take-up, with subscriptions rising by 4,656 (2.7%) year-on-year, to 176,286 by the end of last September. 81.8% of all subscriptions were purchased in a bundle alongside other electronic communications products.
Fixed telephony
Breaking long-term market trends, the fixed-line telephony segment reported a small decline of 827 subscriptions year-on-year, from 259,509 at the end of September 2020 to 258,682 a year later.
This came about mainly as a result of one of the larger providers discontinuing the pre-paid telephony service, with a good segment of impacted clients choosing not to renew the service on a post-paid contract.
In view of this development, the number of pre-paid subscriptions dropped from 5,442 to 15 over the 12-month period ending last September. Meanwhile, the number of post-paid subscriptions was up by 4,129 (1.7%) year-on-year, to 258,667 by the end of September 2021. 84.4% of all fixed telephony subscriptions recorded at the end of September were purchased in a bundle plan.
Fixed voice call and minute volumes recorded in the first nine months of 2021 were also down compared to the same period a year earlier, by 26.4% and 25.7% respectively.
Post
The evolving scenario for the postal segment remained dominated by the continued decline in mail volumes. For the first nine months of 2021, a total of 23.4 million postal mail items were delivered, 4.2% less than recorded in the same period of 2020.