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Barcelona, 3 February, 2010 In the month of December, the broadband market maintained its upward trend of the past few months (August-November) and added 63,722 new lines, following a period of more moderate growth (February-July). As a result, at the end of the year, Spain had more than 9.7 million broadband lines, or 7.6% more than at the end of 2008, reaching a penetration rate of 21.1 lines per 100 inhabitants according to the latest CMT figures included in the December monthly note.

 

Alternative operators gained 64% of net broadband line subscriptions during the last quarter (October-December), with cable operators obtaining 20% and Telefónica, 17%.

 

The dynamism of the broadband and fixed telephony markets was also evident in the portability operations associated with fixed telephone lines. As a result, December saw the second best figure for fixed portability operations since the CMT began recording that measurement. Concretely, 136,322 portability operations were recorded, a number just below the record number of exchanges which was beaten in November (138,541 lines). Portability in fixed lines is linked to changes of operator made by users when contracting broadband and fixed telephony services with other operators.

 

Likewise, the month of December also saw the highest figure in mobile portability operations in the last two years (2008-2009),with 429,974 changes of operator. The number of mobile lines increased by 300,649 during the month. Orange was the operator with the greatest increase in lines during the last quarter (32.91%), followed by Yoigo (21.87%), Movistar (19%), Vodafone (14.88%) and the MVNOs (11.33%).

 

As regards fixed telephony, 13,224 net subscriptions were recorded in December. This figure is the highest for the whole year, since a positive figure for net fixed telephony subscriptions was only recorded in November: 7,839.

 

Annual count
During the past year, the number of broadband lines in Spain increased by 688,974. Broken down by technology type, a total of 7.9 million DSL lines were recorded at the end of 2009, 8.2% more than at the close of the previous year. In turn, modem cable obtained 1.9 million lines, with a year-to-year increase of 5%. Regarding lines gained by different operators, alternative operators obtained 57% of net broadband subscriptions during the year, whereas Telefónica obtained 30% and cable modem operators gained 13%.

 

Market competition in the broadband and fixed telephony segment was reflected by user portability operations with other fixed telephony operators. At at the close of 2009, this amounted to a total of 1.48 million changes, which was 31.2% higher than the accumulated figure at the end of 2008.

Mobile telephony also showed signs of being highly dynamic during the year. Despite the high penetration rates recorded in previous years, 2009 closed with 52.9 million lines, representing an increase of 4% compared to 2008, and even reached penetration rate of 114.6 lines per 100 inhabitants.

 

Likewise, the year ended with a total of 19.9 million fixed lines, 2% less than in 2008, and a penetration rate of 43 lines per 100 inhabitants, which is almost one point lower than the 2008 figure. Fixed lines associated with the business segment showed the year’s greatest decrease, which was 6.7 million lines at the end of the year; this is 6.5% less than the figure at the end of 2008.

Dynamism in the M2M lines segment
At the end of 2009, a total of 1.85 million M2M lines - mobile telephone lines linked to telemetry and telecontrol services - was recorded. This segment experienced a growth of 25% with respect to the previous year. If we include personal communication lines and M2M lines at the end of 2009, the total number of mobile telephone lines reached 54.7 million.

More information is available at blogcmt.com