Mobile data usage surged by 56% in first nine months of 2022
Subscriptions for fixed broadband plans up steeply
Mobile data usage in the first nine months of last year surpassed the volume recorded in the same period of 2021 by 56%, the Malta Communications Authority said on Tuesday.
Reporting on its regular surveys, the authority said there was significant growth in demand for telecom services in Malta, as reflected in the increase of subscriptions for all electronic communication services
The survey showed that users were increasingly seeking higher-speed data offers and upgrading to mobile data plans with larger allowances.
The mobile telephony segment saw a 7% increase in subscriptions year-on-year, with mobile data usage in Q1-Q3 2022 surpassing the volume recorded in the same period of 2021 by 56%.
The fixed broadband market also showed an upward trend, with a 4% year-on-year increase in the number of users and a remarkable surge of 188% in subscriptions for fixed broadband plans with a speed of 500Mbps or more, mainly attributed to one of the operators upgrading its service for existing clients.
Subscriptions for pay-TV were up by 4.6% year-on-year, with this change happening in the context of more subscriptions materialising in a bundle setting alongside the fixed broadband service.
In the fixed telephony segment, there was a small annual growth of 0.7% in subscriptions. However, there was a 24.1% decrease in the number of minutes used when comparing the first nine months of 2022 to the same period in the previous year. This decline was likely the result of people increasingly using mobile services instead.
For the postal segment, mail volumes decreased by 6.5% in the first nine months of 2022. This decline was mainly caused by mail within the universal service, which dropped by 7.8%. However, mail volumes outside the universal service showed an increase of 11.8%.